Her Story
About Dilksanny
I started my career as a pharmacy technician in retail, but I quickly realized something was missing. When patients came to pick up their medications and encountered insurance rejections for prior authorizations or other claim issues, nobody would look into it or know how to solve the rejections. We would just tell patients to call their insurance, leaving them without their medication and without answers. I kept wondering what happens after that, what the patient has to do, and I wanted to understand more about what it takes to get medication in front of the patient. That curiosity led me into access reimbursement and patient access liaison work. Over the past 5 years, I have built comprehensive experience across all sides of pharmaceutical access. I have worked in specialty pharmacy clinics, done reviews for prior authorizations on the insurance side, and now work as a pharmaceutical liaison. I have seen access and reimbursement from every angle: payer, clinic, pharmacy, and pharmaceutical. My current role involves partnering with sales representatives every day in the field to educate medical offices about payer requirements, affordability, and access to important medications. Right now I work with a schizophrenia medication, which is especially meaningful during Mental Health Awareness Month. My job is to help offices navigate the often deliberately complex language that payers use in their requirements. Sometimes the language is designed to trick the person doing the prior authorization and make it difficult so they can deny approval. I help my team identify these payer requirement issues and understand what the insurance really wants. I also understand the burden on medical offices because I have been on that side. Sometimes a medical assistant is doing prior authorizations while also taking patient vitals, so they do not have much time. My goal is to continue growing in this field and become a manager so I can help my team better understand payer requirements and ensure patients get the medications they need.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Dilksanny
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to never giving up, even when things get really hard. Even in school, I failed classes at the beginning and it was not a good time. I felt bad for maybe one month or some weeks about failing a class or not doing well in my grades, but that never stopped me from going ahead and doing it again. When I was applying for this role, there were many times I said I was going to stop applying, that nobody was going to hire me, that they did not see my experience as valuable. Even though I was getting beaten up with rejections, I still applied. I picked myself up and kept going. We all have those days where you feel like the world is against you, but somehow you think about it, you think of yourself, and you still go. I came here from the Dominican Republic 12 years ago with basically nothing. Well, I had something - I had a dream. I wanted to go to school, I wanted to learn English. My grandfather made the petition and gave me a green card, so I had this future and the capability to go ahead and become what I have become right now. So yes, just keep going. That is what I always think.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I know everybody is trying to get into this role because reimbursement management and patient access is very competitive. What I would tell everybody is to keep going, keep working, keep applying, and keep tailoring that resume. That is how I got the role - I contacted my boss's boss, and that is how I got in front of my boss. My recommendation is that your experience counts. People think that working in the office doing prior authorization is not valuable, but yes, it is valuable. When you work in the office, you are seeing the burden at the office level. Now when you are on the pharmaceutical side of it, you understand what they are going through and how many issues they have. Sometimes there is a medical assistant doing prior authorizations and also taking the vitals for the patients, so now you understand that sometimes they do not have much time to do prior authorizations because they are taking care of patients too. So believe in your experience and try to apply. For me, it took me 2 years, but it was wonderful timing. Get all your experience from all the sides - clinic, pharmacy, payer, all of that. When you go into pharmaceuticals, you will understand so many things. It enriches the experience. I have been working in specialty pharmacy clinics, I used to do the reviews for prior authorization on the insurance side, and I have all the knowledge. I have seen access and reimbursement from all the sides.
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