Mail Service Pharmacy CSCD 6 - Telephonic Access and Availability

CSCD 6 sets forth requirements for the organization's telephonic communications with consumers, providers and other clinical personnel.  The requirements cover hours of operation (12 hours/day, with different requirements for consumers, pharmacies, and providers), and requirements for handling calls both during normal business hours and outside those business hours.  The standard also requires that these hours of operations and policies be communicated to consumers, providers, and other clinicians.

Unlike the previous two standards, which focused on communication with your organizational clients, this standard is focused on communicating with consumers, pharmacies, physicians, and other prescribers. 

Note that not all mail service pharmacies contract to provide call center services.  If this is the case with your organization, submit an attestation to that affect and this standard will be "not applicable."  

However, if this standard does apply to you, it sets detailed requirements for the hours of operation of the call center, different requirements depending on whether the caller is a consumer, a pharmacy, or a prescriber.

If the language of subsection (a) is confusing to you, fear not.  It is not you -- it is the standard, which is not URAC's finest literary effort.  At first glance, the stem for (a) would seem to suggest that all three caller categories get 12-hour access, but that seems clearly the case only for consumers.  The hours for pharmacies seem to be longer or shorter, depending on which hours "network pharmacies are open."  Finally, prescribers are guaranteed only 10 hours of access, the language of the stem notwithstanding. 

The standard requires that your clinical staff be available for these three caller types during normal business hours, and 24/7 coverage for emergency services. 

With no apparent irony intended, the standard requires that you communicate, clearly, your policy on hours of operation to consumers, pharmacies, and prescribers.  

For this standard, submit a P&P that describes in detail your communication policy for all three caller groups including not only hours of operation, but how you are going to handle staffing, both during normal business hours and after-hours, as well as emergency calls, non-English speaking callers, and callers with rotary phones.