If such delivery is to become a standard part of medical care, moreover, it will have to be discreet and it will have special quality and compliance standards to live up to, beyond what normal parcel delivery entails. For these reasons, an appropriate courier service must be chosen with extreme care. Here are seven signs that a medical courier might not be up to the task.

Unprofessional Drivers
A courier, like any other company, must establish a reputation associated with its brand, and the company personnel must represent that brand. They should be uniformed, professionally trained, and background-checked. The drivers should be wearing an official uniform and driving a company car.

Poor Customer Service
This one is kind of a no-brainer for any service, but it has special importance here. Drivers need to be able to communicate clearly, promptly, and politely so that recipients are aware of any complications or change in delivery status. They must quickly be apprised of why the problem arose and what the driver is going to do to rectify the situation. Manners makes man — especially when delivering medical shipments.

Late or Inconsistent Deliveries
Again, this one is fairly obvious, but especially in a medical context, it’s important enough to bear repeating. One or two snafus are serious enough when the shipment might be lifesaving, or make a huge impact on human well-being. A pattern of late shipments or errors in shipping, such as delivering to a wrong address, is cause for grave concern.

Erratic Payment Process
This needs to run smoothly in any event. In lifesaving medicine, it is simply essential. A payment system that does not work properly in medical delivery can delay the shipment of medication and equipment that patients desperately need.

Inadequate Industry Experience
You are doubtless aware that doctors and nurses require a great deal of training and experience to do their jobs well. There’s a lot to know in medicine! Medical couriers should likewise have ample experience with the intricacies of medical equipment and biological specimens, the special conditions required for effectively transporting them, and the thick knot of law and regulation laced around the industry. Do your due diligence and make sure they’ve been in the game a while!

Inadequate Vehicles
The right tools for the job are essential, especially where life and health are concerned. Vehicles must be spotless and in good repair. They must be climate controlled and have adequate refrigeration and storage units as well as insulated pouches. Medical transport cannot properly occur in a broken-down, unsanitary, and ill-equipped vehicle.

HIPAA Noncompliance
HIPAA is the federal law governing medical privacy. There are very strict regulations regarding what information drivers can and cannot release and establishing a chain of custody around sensitive data. Monitor all your communications with the driver and the company — written, spoken, and electronic — to make sure the rules are being followed.

Conclusion
Medical transport is serious business, and should be entrusted only to serious businesses that specialize in it. A suitable medical courier has the skill, the experience, and the facilities to ensure that sensitive and delicate shipments are moved quickly, without damage, and with legal and ethical discretion. To learn more about R���۴�ý’ expertise in this area, call 888-415-1781.

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HIPAA
Medical couriers should all have HIPAA certification. HIPAA is federal legislation that protects medical patient privacy. These regulations require organizations like insurance companies and medical facilities to carefully regulate who has access to medical information, and also enable patients to have greater control over access to their information. Without HIPAA, there would be no firm rules in place to safeguard patient data. Breaches of this law can carry stern penalties and large fines, so HIPAA certification is a must.

Most HIPAA violations are the result of inadequate employee training, of a courier (or other employee) not being sufficiently aware of the regulations. The violations consist of things like employees mishandling records or disclosing confidential information, lost or stolen devices with sensitive medical information on them, unauthorized parties having access to patient files, or releasing personal information without written consent from a patient.

Transportation Practices
The link between courier and dispatch is crucial to the privacy and security of a medical shipment. The dispatch team should be able to monitor and communicate with a driver at every step of the itinerary, something only really possible if GPS technology offers real-time location information. That will allow patients, providers, and dispatch to calculate the ETA with ease, ensuring the safest and fastest possible delivery.

Further, chain of custody must be established by having couriers alert providers with email notifications and soliciting signatures after a delivery has been completed. This enables both parties to verify that the delivery was made on time and in good condition.

Other Considerations
Medical couriers must comply with a welter of state, federal, and professional regulations, including those established by agencies such as the Air Transport Association and the Department of Transportation. They must be able to deliver outside normal business hours, and their vehicles must have refrigeration capabilities.

Most importantly, the courier must make a solemn institutional commitment to putting the patient’s welfare first. They must be cordial and professional at all times when dealing with patients and their families, and try to understand the enormous stress the situation they are laboring under. After all, keeping patients alive, healthy, and happy is what medical delivery is all about!

Conclusion
Medical transport is worth taking seriously, and should be entrusted to companies with the knowledge and integrity to ensure compliance and the welfare of patients. To learn about R���۴�ý’ expertise in this area, call 888-415-1781.

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The Advantages for Patients

Whereas same-day delivery of retail goods is largely just a matter of convenience, many factors make same-day medical goods delivery quite a bit more pressing. For one thing, patients may have a mobility impairment that causes them great difficulty getting in to the pharmacy to pick up their medication. A great deal of medical care revolves around care for the injured, disabled, and elderly, after all, and all of these groups are likely to have reduced mobility.

Privacy is another important issue for patients. These days, there are very strict government regulations such as HIPAA governing the control and release of medical information, laws that exist due to an overwhelming public demand for medical privacy. Still, picking up a prescription entails the disclosure of very sensitive information in public in a way that delivery does not. Time is a further consideration. Patients are often either busy or need to recuperate on their doctors’ orders, making pickup less than ideal.

There is, finally the matter of convenience. Although, as we have observed, same-day prescription delivery transcends the mere convenience afforded to retail shoppers, convenience remains an important consideration nonetheless. It’s simply one less trip to the store!

Benefits for Pharmacists

That there would be myriad benefits to same-day pharmaceuticals delivery for patients is to some extent intuitive. Perhaps more intriguing, however, are the numerous benefits afforded to pharmacists themselves. The first advantage is repeat business. By impressing customers with their speed and courtesy, pharmacists make it much more likely that their buyers will return. The buyer is also likely to recommend the pharmacy to friends and family as positive word-of-mouth is generated. It also makes the pharmacy more attractive to new customers, to whom delivery might be an absolute necessity, and who might rather deal with a local pharmacy they can speak to if need be than to a remote online distributor.

Conclusion

The business case for same-day delivery on pharmaceuticals is clear-cut. In an age where online ordering is becoming more and more the norm, pharmacies will encounter growing demand to get medications through the “last mile” of delivery by forming strategic alliances with local courier services.

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