DrFirst’s Colin Banas targets specialty care prescription delays: full analysis
Colin Banas, chief medical officer at DrFirst, is pushing a simple message: specialty prescribing still gets stuck in administrative limbo, and healthcare needs to end the “prescription ping-pong” between clinicians, pharmacies, and payers. In his latest interview with PharmaShots, Banas said the biggest barriers are still fragmented workflows, opaque prior authorization requirements, and poor visibility into where a prescription stands once it leaves the exam room. (pharmashots.com)
That argument builds on a broader campaign DrFirst has been making around specialty medication access. In an earlier PharmaShots conversation published in August 2025, Banas said prescribers often don’t know whether a prior authorization is required, what documentation a payer needs, or whether a pharmacy can even dispense the product. He described pharmacies getting trapped in the middle, repeatedly going back to clinicians for missing information, while patients are left waiting and wondering whether they’ll ever start therapy. (pharmashots.com)
DrFirst’s pitch is that the answer isn’t just electronic prior authorization by itself, but orchestration across the full prescribing pathway. On its ePA product page, the company says its platform unifies pharmacy and medical benefits into a single workflow, adds patient-specific benefit verification, and automates checks for whether prior authorization is needed, whether a submission has errors, and how status is tracked. DrFirst says that approach can reduce manual work by 70%, though that figure comes from company data. (drfirst.com)
The company has also emphasized that routing is a major part of the problem. In a DrFirst blog post published in 2025, Banas said many specialty medications are sent to local pharmacies that can’t fill them, creating avoidable delays before the prescription is redirected to a specialty pharmacy. A company-sponsored Fierce Pharma report made the same point more forcefully, citing DrFirst research that specialty pharmacies were 30% more likely to successfully fill a rheumatology medication than non-specialty pharmacies, while more than a quarter of high-cost specialty prescriptions were mistakenly sent to non-specialty pharmacies. That same report cited wider physician frustration with prior authorization, including care delays, continuity-of-care disruptions, and serious adverse events. (drfirst.com)
Industry commentary around DrFirst’s message has been consistent, if not especially independent. Healthcare Innovation, in a November 2025 interview with Banas, framed specialty medication access as a transparency problem marked by complex administrative handoffs that affect adherence and affordability. DrFirst has also tied the issue to its acquisition of Myndshft Technologies, which Banas said helps bridge the long-standing divide between pharmacy and medical benefits, a split that is especially painful for oncology and other high-specialty practices. (hcinnovationgroup.com)
Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, especially those in specialty, oncology, dermatology, cardiology, and referral settings, this is less about one executive’s vision than about a broader workflow lesson. As animal health sees more advanced therapeutics, higher-cost medications, and more specialty pharmacy involvement, the same operational risks can emerge: the wrong dispensing destination, incomplete documentation, poor visibility for staff, and confusion for pet parents. Human healthcare’s push toward integrated benefits checks, smarter routing, and fewer manual handoffs offers a preview of the infrastructure veterinary teams may increasingly expect from pharmacy, diagnostics, and practice-management partners. (pharmashots.com)
There’s also a caution here. Much of the available evidence in this story comes from DrFirst itself or interviews with its executives, so the claims should be read as informed industry positioning, not neutral validation. Still, the underlying problem of fragmented specialty medication workflows is well documented in the company’s own materials and echoed across healthcare trade coverage. The practical takeaway for veterinary leaders is straightforward: access friction is becoming a systems problem, not just a staffing problem. (drfirst.com)
What to watch: The next step is whether vendors can prove that integrated prior authorization, benefits verification, and pharmacy routing measurably shorten time to therapy, reduce staff workload, and improve communication for patients, clinicians, and, in veterinary settings, pet parents. (drfirst.com)