Allie Fay

Her Story

Dr. Fay received her Doctor of Pharmacy from Ohio Northern University Raabe College of Pharmacy in 2016. She went on to complete her PGY1 Pharmacy Practice residency with UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy/Community Care of North Carolina and a PGY2 Ambulatory Care residency with a focus in academia with Mountain Area Health Education Center (MAHEC)/UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy. She became board certified in Ambulatory Care and Advanced Diabetes Management in 2017. During her PGY2 residency, Dr. Fay established the first full-time clinical pharmacist position at The Family Health Centers in Asheville, NC and has been in her current position since 2018.

In her current role, Dr. Fay provides chronic disease management through a collaborative co-visit model with the patient's primary provider and assists with Medicare Annual Wellness Visits, high-risk transitions of care, and medication access. She also oversees the practice's pharmacy technicians, prior authorization department, and medication-focused ACO quality metrics. Dr. Fay serves as a preceptor for third and fourth-year pharmacy students and in the UNC Rural Health Scholars program.

Describe the facility where you work (eg. Is it a teaching hospital? Health Center? 

The Family Health Centers is a physician-owned primary care practice with three locations in Asheville, NC and the surrounding area. As the largest independent practice in Western North Carolina, over 20 providers (MD, DO, NP, and PA) provide patients with individualized primary care at all stages of life. In addition to pharmacy services, FHC also offers a lifestyle medicine clinic, headache clinic, weight-loss clinic, memory loss consults, and office-based opioid treatment (OBOT).

Recent Significant Projects

Dr. Fay recently created an advanced pharmacy technician position within The Family Health Centers. In this new role, the pharmacy technician oversees the prior authorizations for the practice, manages the patient assistance program, and assists with any additional technical tasks of the pharmacy department. Providers, clinical staff, and patients have all noted that the pharmacy technician has improved access to necessary medications. 
   
Seeing the difficulty to accessing appropriate treatment during the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Fay also established The Family Health Center's COVID-19 Monoclonal Antibody (Mab) Infusion Clinic in the Fall of 2021. As project lead, she oversees MAb ordering, treatment referrals, clinic days, and coordination with patient's provider for appropriate follow-up. Since it's creation, patients have been able to receive treatment earlier and with more ease than when coordinating outside referrals and providers have been thankful to be able to offer this life-saving medication. 

Initial Involvement in ASHP

Dr. Fay has been involved within the Section of Ambulatory Care Practitioners since 2017 and currently serves on the Section Advisory Group (SAG) on Compensation and Practice Sustainability. 

Why did you become involved in ASHP? 

I became involved in ASHP to connect more with colleagues in ambulatory care. I was the only pharmacist on staff in my clinic, so being able to network and discuss ways to continue to grow our pharmacy department has been tremendously helpful.  I hope to also be able to help new practitioners in establishing sustainable pharmacy services in the future through my on-going involvement.

Advice for Someone New to Specialty Area 

As clinical pharmacist roles evolve and expand, it's vital to understand the billing aspects in ambulatory care. Knowing how insurance reimbursement works and what services pharmacists can bill for or contribute to the billing for can make or break the sustainability or expand-ability of the pharmacy services within a practice. I would recommend starting with "Building a Successful Ambulatory Care Practice" by Mary Ann Kliethermes and Tim R. Brown (available in the ASHP store) if you are interested in learning more about this area of clinical pharmacy practice. 

How would you explain the value of ASHP to a friend or colleague?

Without the connections I have made through ASHP, I would not be as confident in leading our pharmacy services forward and advocating for our profession. The resource center and CE materials have also been so helpful in getting the most robust information easily accessible in the same area. 

What is the value of ASHP for the profession?

ASHP gives pharmacists a larger, collective voice in advocating for advancing our role on the healthcare team.