AUSTIN, Texas, March 8, 2017, /PRNewswire/ — For persons living with multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s Disease, rheumatoid arthritis or Lupus, easy access to their life-changing medications and treatments is critical to their quality of life. To help specialty physicians and independent Infusion Centers provide the best care to these patients, entrepreneurs and infusion center owners Reece Norris and Bryan Johnson developed WeInfuse, the first web-based software that improves the operations and administration of specialty and biologic pharmaceuticals needed by millions of patients each year.
WeInfuse helps doctors, nurses, and administrators by coordinating patient scheduling and insurance pre-authorization as well as inventory and delivery of non-chemotherapy infusion medications. Doctors providing in-office infusion services – usually in neurology, rheumatology, and gastroenterology – expect demand for their services to grow, as many biologic medications currently in the FDA pipeline must be administered by infusion or injection.
Providing medications in an office setting has risks because of the cost to acquire and administer medicines with complex pharmaceutical protocols that must be followed before and during treatment. “Infusion practices are high risk from a medical standpoint, as well as a business or financial perspective,” says Dr. Jeffrey Feinstein, a rheumatologist in San Antonio, Texas, who began using WeInfuse in his practice in February 2017.
For Kim Blasingame, CMPE, a practice administrator at Kane Hall Barry Neurology in Bedford, Texas, WeInfuse software replaced their existing process that was prone to complications because it relied on paper and shared spreadsheets. Blasingame says their practice is ready to grow as more drugs are approved and prescribed.
“What WeInfuse offers is real efficiencies into ambulatory infusion,” Blasingame says. “It’s a cheaper delivery model than hospital and is better for patients. As new drugs come to market, we are prepared to help people get them. The emerging MS drugs are an example of what it’s all about: keeping patients at the highest level of function for as long as possible.”
Co-founder and CEO Bryan Johnson began operating Infusion Centers in 2003 and led the design of WeInfuse to improve patient care and office efficiencies. He sees WeInfuse as a way to help more doctors provide better care. “WeInfuse makes it simple for even the smallest physician office to provide these medications to patients in their practice,” he says.
Popular features of the WeInfuse software include insurance verification tools, chair-based scheduling, infusion medication nursing notes and inventory management. Together they help ensure patients can receive the right medicine exactly when they need it, and the center minimizes or eliminates the financial risk of lost or broken inventory and unbilled medications.
“An Infusion Center has the potential to be the most profitable part of a doctor’s practice, but it has the least amount of technology systems in place,” explains Johnson. “That leaves a lot of room for costly errors. For example, an 8-chair practice buys $13M in medication each year. If as little as five percent of its medications are unbilled – whether that’s broken, lost or sloppy paperwork — that’s a little over a quarter million a year. WeInfuse helps prevent that.”
Founded in 2016 by three experienced Infusion Center owners and operators, WeInfuse is built on two decades of experience with this unique model of medication delivery. Its web-based application simplifies and reduces the complexity involved with managing Infusion Centers, improving patient care and reducing the risk for owners, administrators and doctors. WeInfuse is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
