Keep PAAS. The bottleneck at letter-time is retrieval, not expertise.
This page is titled with a plus and will stay that way. PAAS National has spent since 1993 helping community pharmacies survive PBM audits, and their analysts have argued with the specific auditor looking at your file, on the specific issue, more times than anyone reading this. No software replaces that, and any vendor telling you otherwise is selling you something.
Thirty-three years of doing the part that cannot be automated.
Expertise measured in audits, not features
PAAS states it has analyzed 115,000 audits, saved $1.4 billion in audit recoupments, and averages a 93% reduction in audit recoupments, with a team of pharmacist and technician analysts carrying more than fifty years of combined experience. Those are PAAS's own published figures. Whatever number you apply your own discount to, the underlying point holds: this is pattern recognition built from volume no individual pharmacy will ever see.
Defense work across the full range of audit types
They provide one-on-one dedicated audit support, pre and post audit defense consulting, pre-audit document review and, in their words, "unpublished appeal strategies", across Rx validation requests, desktop audits, onsite audits, invoice audits, OIG and Medicaid audits and Medicare B audits. That breadth is the product of decades, and it is not something a platform acquires by shipping a feature.
Knowing the auditor, not just the rule
PAAS states it continuously updates a certified database of every audit received and keeps a scorecard on individual auditors. That is intelligence about how a specific reviewer behaves, and it exists nowhere in any pharmacy's own data. It is exactly the kind of knowledge that changes an outcome and exactly the kind no software vendor can generate.
A compliance programme underneath the audit work
Their FWA and HIPAA programme includes a customized policy and procedure manual running over 150 pages, HIPAA risk analysis, annual FWA, HIPAA and cybersecurity training, daily OIG and GSA exclusion checks and license tracking. They also publish a monthly member newsletter on current audit tactics and prevention strategies. This is a serious compliance practice, not an audit hotline.
Expert help works better when the evidence is already assembled.
Think about what actually consumes the days after a letter arrives. It is very rarely the argument. It is finding the hardcopies, the signature logs, the prior authorizations and the purchase invoices for two hundred specific claims, spread across paper files, fax confirmations and three systems, while the pharmacy still has to open every morning. That retrieval work is the bottleneck, and it is the part an expert cannot do for you because it lives in your building. It is also, unlike the argument, a pure software problem. Every event archived as it arrived, every document bound to its claim on the day it happened, and a response package exported from a pasted claim list. What changes is not who defends you. It is that the person defending you starts on day one with the complete file instead of on day twelve with most of it.
Two halves of the same defense.
This table is not a scorecard. It is a division of labour, and the honest reading of it is that a pharmacy facing a serious audit wants both columns rather than either one.
| Capability | Attergo | PAAS National |
|---|---|---|
| Human audit defense and appeal strategy | No. We do not represent you, argue your case or advise on appeal strategy, and we are not qualified to. | Yes, and it is the core of what they do. One-on-one dedicated support, pre and post audit consulting and unpublished appeal strategies. |
| Knowledge of how a specific PBM and auditor behaves | No. We see your data. We do not see the other 115,000 audits. | Yes. A continuously updated audit database and a scorecard on individual auditors. |
| FWA and HIPAA compliance programme | We maintain a compliance register for expiries, licenses and attestations. That is calendar discipline, not a compliance manual or training curriculum. | Yes. Over 150 pages of customized policy and procedure, risk analysis, annual training and daily OIG and GSA exclusion checks. |
| Evidence assembled continuously, before any letter arrives | Yes. Documents bind to their claim on the day the work happens, so the defense file exists before it is requested. | They provide pre-audit document review and proactive guidance. The assembly of your own records remains your operational task. |
| Response package for a specific claim list | Yes. Paste the claim list from the letter and export an organized package with documentation attached per claim. | Not a software deliverable. Their consulting covers what the package should contain and how it will be judged. |
| Risk found before an auditor finds it | Yes, as flags on your own claims, continuously. | Yes, as guidance and training on days supply calculations, substitutions, documentation and record retention. |
| Days supply and documentation guidance | No. We surface the risk. We do not teach the rule. | Yes. Days supply charts, a calculator, on-demand webinars and the monthly newsletter. |
Every entry in the PAAS National column is drawn from the pages listed at the foot of this page. Where their own materials do not state a capability, the cell says so rather than guessing, because an absence of marketing copy is not evidence of an absence of capability.
Two honest recommendations.
Choose PAAS National if
this framing is wrong for PAAS and we will not pretend otherwise. If you are a community pharmacy exposed to PBM audits and you are not a PAAS member, join. The expertise is real, the appeal outcomes are the thing you are buying, and no analytics platform including this one substitutes for a pharmacist analyst who has fought the same auditor on the same issue before. Start there, and treat everything else as secondary.
Choose Attergo if
you already have PAAS, or you are about to, and you want the retrieval half solved so their expertise starts on a complete file. That is the whole proposition here: keep the experts, add the evidence layer, and turn the first two weeks of an audit from archaeology into an export. Nothing about running us asks you to drop them, and if you ever have to choose between the two, choose them.
The product that carries most of this weight on our side is Attergo Audit, and it is one of eight on a single connection.
Every claim above traces to their own words.
- PAAS National homepage: operating since 1993, and the published audit outcome figures
- PAAS National, About Us: founding by Edward Heckman in 1993 and current leadership
- PAAS National, Audit Assistance: dedicated support, appeal strategies and the audit types covered
- PAAS National, Why Join Us: the analyst team, the audit database and the auditor scorecard
- PAAS National, FWA and HIPAA compliance programme components
What we could not verify
We describe their monthly member newsletter by that generic name rather than by a brand name, because the only page where a brand name for it appeared read as member testimonial copy rather than as PAAS's own product description, and we would rather understate a partner than misname their publication. We also avoid the term "self-audit tools", which we could not find PAAS using: the verified language covers guidance on internal audit procedures, days supply charts and a calculator. PAAS publishes no roster of the PBMs it defends against, so we name none.
Give your audit expert a complete file on day one.
Thirty minutes, one facility, a read-only connection and credentials you can revoke. We come back with what your own last month actually cost you.
Comparison based on publicly available information as of 2 August 2026. See something outdated? Tell us and we'll fix it. sales@attergo.com