Intern Alumnus Spotlight: Delwin Mitchell, PharmD
Originally published in the October 2020 AMCP Foundation Insights e-newsletter.
Since AMCP Foundation’s founding in 1990, nearly 200 student pharmacists have taken part in our summer internships. We're pleased to highlight our intern alumni in this reoccurring feature.
Name: Delwin Mitchell, PharmD
Current Title: Clinical Advisor, CVS Health
Internship Program: AMCP Foundation/Pfizer Managed Care Summer Internship
Internship Site: BlueCross BlueShield of Texas
Year: 2003
What is your role today and your responsibilities?
My current role is as a Clinical Advisor for the Health Plan segment at CVS Health. I’m responsible for providing health plan specific clinical and operational support in the areas of formulary management, drug utilization review, rebates, and clinical program implementation and oversight. In efforts to promote favorable utilization trends, I also conduct clinical data analyses to help monitor plan performance and capture opportunities to increase cost-efficiency and clinical quality. Additionally, I serve as a drug information resource.
In my current role as a clinical advisor for the health plan segment at CVS Health, I use most managed care practices because I work on the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) side of the business and support Medicaid Health Plans/Managed Care Organizations (MCOs). In my current role, my day-to-day responsibilities involve: adherence measures, care coordination, disease management, drug pricing, drug trend analysis, fraud, waste, and abuse, government/state regulations, generic substitution, MTM, formulary and utilization management, rebates, substance use disorder, and more.
How did the AMCP Foundation internship prepare you for your career?
I had limited exposure to managed care pharmacy during pharmacy school. My AMCP Foundation internship was the key to opening the door to a new segment of pharmacy and many future career opportunities. It exposed me to most managed care pharmacy concepts giving me an advantage over other pharmacy students—even those students who had more exposure to managed care pharmacy during pharmacy school. When I applied for managed care practice residencies, residency directors saw my AMCP Foundation internship experience as a significant advantage. It showed that I knew and could speak to many managed care concepts. It also showed my drive to have a career focused on managed care. I applied to multiple managed care practice residencies and was fortunate enough to receive several offers — selecting the managed care practice residency of my choice.
What advice do you have for pharmacy students?
I would encourage any pharmacy student interested in managed care pharmacy to apply for an AMCP Foundation internship program — especially if they are also considering a managed care practice residency. Concepts in managed care are being discussed more and more in pharmacy school today. However, the AMCP Foundation internships give students the opportunity to gain more knowledge about managed care and use that knowledge in areal-world setting giving them a huge advantage over other pharmacy students.
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