Dosespot

So today we’re chatting about DoseSpot and how it’s used at your company. Before we jump into that, could you give a brief overview of the company and your role there?

Yeah, so we’re a virtual care platform that specializes in family health. We initially started as a marketplace where we sold directly to consumers, but as our company expanded, we began offering our services as a benefit to employers. More recently, we’ve started working with payers, so they can also offer our platform as a benefit to their members. So, we’ve been experiencing significant growth.

I’m not really involved in the core virtual care platform. I work on a secondary benefit that we offer, which is a financial assistance product. Employers or payers can allocate a certain amount of money toward family building services for their sponsored members. The client gets to decide how those funds are used. I’m responsible for managing that product and enhancing the member experience. It’s actually a relatively new addition to our platform.

What drove your company’s need for DoseSpot?

The Jumpstart version of DoseSpot is currently used primarily by our virtual care physician network for prescribing medications to members during virtual visits. That’s our main use case.

I started exploring DoseSpot because, for my project, we need to retrieve members’ year-to-date plan information so we can calculate how much members should pay for a service. We can easily get medical information, year-to-date deductible, and out-of-pocket maximum for integrated plans where medical and prescription are combined. But for employers with a carved-out prescription plan that has separate deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, we’ve discovered that we can’t obtain that information through our usual channels.

While reviewing DoseSpot’s API documents, we found an endpoint that could potentially provide the service we need. However, it’s a bit more complicated because of how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) operate and the restrictions on sharing this information. DoseSpot has an endpoint that uses a separate company to aggregate the information and provide it to us. But we have to do our due diligence and reach out to each PBM to confirm if they’re willing to share the coverage information for this employer’s carved-out prescription plan with that other platform. If PBMs don’t share the information, our use of DoseSpot’s endpoint will be limited. So we’re looking to deepen our integration with DoseSpot to obtain the year-to-date spend information for carved-out prescription plans.

Our virtual care network physicians are really excited about the idea of using the fully integrated version. Our current plan is quite limited. By moving to DoseSpot’s Full Integration solution, we expect to unlock new features that will benefit our existing use cases as well.

What were the initial requirements your company was looking for when you were evaluating DoseSpot?

I wasn’t involved in this particular decision, but our typical reasons for choosing a product are either price or some type of connection to a vendor.

Are you considering other vendors for your project?

For my specific use case, we’ve looked at DrFirst, which is a direct competitor of DoseSpot. Another option is CoverMyMeds. We’re also exploring the possibility of reaching out to each individual PBM directly, as a backup plan in case we can’t find a vendor or platform that can provide us with the necessary information for all PBMs. In a worst-case scenario, we’ll have to work with each PBM separately to retrieve the year-to-date spend data. So we’re currently in discussions with them as well. This is just the first step though, as there’s a second step that involves working closely with the PBMs, so we need to have conversations with the PBMs anyway.

What use case will DoseSpot help you with?

The main use case we need it for is to better capture carve-out prescription plan data from plans for payers. Specifically considering my own use case, if I recommend that we go with another vendor, like CoverMyMeds, then either I or the current product team responsible for the integration will need to do more work to figure out whether we’ll continue with DoseSpot. Currently, we’re leaning toward DoseSpot by about 80%, so I don’t think that will happen.

Why is DoseSpot ranking higher than other vendors?

Because of our existing relationship. It provides what we need, and the pricing is reasonable.

How does the pricing structure work?

In the past, we had a monthly fee that included a certain number of free prescriptions. On top of that, we had to pay a fee for each prescriber per month and an additional fee if we exceeded a certain number of prescriptions. This was the older model.

In the newer model, the monthly fee and the prescriber fee have increased, but we no longer have to pay for each individual prescription. However, there is a one-time integration upgrade fee. Additionally, there is a small identity-proofing fee per prescriber, which remains the same regardless of whether we use the Jumpstart product or opt for Full Integration.

What are the primary use cases that you’re currently using DoseSpot for?

I’m not the product owner of the current Jumpstart integration, but I recently spoke to a provider to learn more about how it’s being used. The way it functions right now is really limited. A member has to schedule an appointment with a provider, and that provider only has access to that one patient. The patient also needs to set a preferred pharmacy; our providers can’t set that for them. Once that’s done, the provider can prescribe medication for the user. The provider I spoke with found it frustrating because there’s so much they can’t do. It’s difficult for them to make updates or resolve issues with the current Jumpstart setup, which may be intentional. The providers log into the DoseSpot portal, which has role-based access control, so they have very limited abilities.

What capabilities are you hoping to get with a potential upgrade from the Jumpstart version to the full DoseSpot integration?

I think, in general, it would allow doctors to search for patients and prescribe medication without needing to schedule an appointment or have a preferred pharmacy already set up. There might be situations where a patient who usually works with Provider A urgently needs a prescription, but Provider A is sick or unable to help. Currently, there isn’t a seamless way to transfer that patient to Provider B, who is available and able to prescribe the medication.

I think our providers would also be able to update a member’s information for them. For example, currently, if a member wants to change their preferred pharmacy, they have to do it themself.

What are the workflows that the providers are performing with DoseSpot, and what limitations are they seeing?

Our providers are using the DoseSpot UI as a part of the Jumpstart program, and it’s not fully integrated into our existing tech stack. The main purpose of our platform is to assist with medication prescriptions. Based on my discussion with the provider, a member books an appointment with a healthcare provider and has a video consultation. During the consultation, the provider can enter notes using our internal platform. When the provider decides to prescribe medication, they click on the “prescribe medication” button, which redirects them to the DoseSpot portal. Once logged in, they can only see the information for the specific member they were consulting with, allowing them to prescribe medication for that member.

What are some strengths and weaknesses you see with DoseSpot?

At the end of the day, our physicians are able to prescribe medications, which is working well for us. I can’t really comment on any weaknesses we may have without knowing if the limitation lies with the DoseSpot portal or if it is specific to our company’s access restrictions.

How is the reliability and stability of the platform?

Based on my conversation with the provider, it doesn’t seem like there are any major issues with bugs or downtime. They just seem frustrated about the limitations in what they can do.

How do you feel about the integration process?

Yeah, our current tech integration is really limited with Jumpstart. It looks like there might be a single sign-on (SSO) option from the button on our EHR-like platform to DoseSpot, which means users don’t have to log in separately. However, I think they still need to log in, even if they click the button. Right now, most of the workflow is actually done within DoseSpot’s portal, rather than using APIs or integrating with our own platform.

But if we upgraded to Full Integration, I think we could potentially develop within our EHR-like platform so that our providers don’t necessarily have to go into DoseSpot’s portal anymore. They could still perform the same tasks, but all within our own platform.

How are the APIs and developer experience?

I would say DoseSpot stands out among other health tech platforms in terms of its documentation and developer experience. Having worked in the health tech industry for some time, I can confidently say that DoseSpot’s documentation is above average. One aspect that I particularly appreciate is that they offer a RESTful API, which means there’s no need to work with XML or other complicated integration methods that I’ve come across elsewhere. It was relatively straightforward to set up a staging environment for testing purposes. In fact, once they provided us with the guide, it only took us two days to reach the endpoint we needed.

In a best case scenario, a service has Postman already configured, allowing us to download it without any additional effort on our part. I think that’s what a top-notch developer experience looks like and it is often what you find with FinTech companies where most of their documentation is open to the public. While I don’t think DoseSpot has reached that level, their documentation and developer experience are pretty solid within the health tech space.

If you move to the Full integration solution, what is the extent of integration you’re considering with your existing tech stack?

My main focus is on my own use case. I want to be able to exclusively use our platform to prescribe medications to our partner pharmacies. This way, we have all the necessary information in one place and don’t have to rely on file sharing or other methods to obtain that data. I believe there are greater possibilities for utilizing DoseSpot’s capabilities once we fully integrate it into our system.

How is the service and account management with DoseSpot?

In our current process, I have direct communication with the account executive at DoseSpot, and she has been wonderful to work with. It has been easy and she is very responsive. Whenever I need assistance with docs, testing, or staging, it’s easy to schedule a call with her. She is also great at explaining things to us and helping us with testing and checking out their APIs. That has been a big advantage for us. Overall, I really like working with them as partners, and based on my personal experience, I don’t see a need to switch vendors.

Working with their sales team and account executive has been smooth. Since we already had a relationship with them, I quickly introduced our use case in a call. They informed us about the availability of an API, and we had a discussion about whether we can use it right now or if an upgrade is required. Eventually, we found out that we needed an upgrade. However, they have always been responsive and their response times are within 24 hours. They are also good at scheduling ad hoc meetings to ensure we can move quickly. I appreciate that, in the first week of figuring things out, we had two and a half calls to confirm that they can support what we’re trying to do. In my experience, with larger and more experienced health tech vendors, it might have taken us two and a half weeks to get to that point. So overall, it has been a pretty good experience working with them.

Do you feel like the team made the right assessment originally in going with DoseSpot?

I’m still pretty new to the world of e-prescribing platforms, but in the past month and a half, I’ve learned a lot. I have to say, DoseSpot is definitely one of the top five platforms, maybe even top three. So I don’t think choosing it was a bad decision.

Do you have any general advice for other buyers who might be considering a product like this?

When evaluating products, it’s a red flag for me if they are unwilling to share their tech documentation early on in the process and if they require multiple agreements just to access it. Some companies even require you to sign a contract before you can see any documents. Another aspect I consider is how quickly they are willing to work with you. I understand that smaller companies may not bring in as much revenue, but it’s important to me that they still treat all companies equally, regardless of size. Whether you’re Amazon/Google or a new emerging tech product, you should be treated with the same level of respect. I found DoseSpot to be very solid, based on my interactions with them.