Keep PAAS. Hand them the complete file on day one.
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. Keep them. What we add is the half that lives in your building: every document bound to its claim on the day it happened, and a response package exported the morning the letter arrives.
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. Behind them sits 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dedicated audit support, pre and post audit defense consulting, pre-audit document review and, in their words, "unpublished appeal strategies", across Rx validation requests, desktop audits, onsite audits, invoice audits, OIG and Medicaid audits and Medicare B audits.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.
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, it exists nowhere in any pharmacy's own data, and it is the kind of knowledge that changes an outcome.
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.
Expert help works better when the evidence is already assembled.
The days after a letter arrives go on retrieval. 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 work lives in your building, and it is a software problem. Every event archived as it arrived. Every document bound to its claim on the day it happened. A response package exported from a pasted claim list. 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.
A division of labour rather than a scorecard. A pharmacy facing a serious audit wants both columns.
| Capability | Attergo | PAAS National |
|---|---|---|
| Human audit defense and appeal strategy | No. We do not represent you, argue your case or advise on appeal strategy. | 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. PAAS supplies the manual and the 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. | Pre-audit document review and proactive guidance. Assembling your own records stays with you. |
| 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. | 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. PAAS teaches 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.
Two honest recommendations.
Choose PAAS National if
you are a community pharmacy exposed to PBM audits and you are not a member yet. Join. The expertise is real, the appeal outcomes are what you are actually buying, and no analytics platform substitutes for a pharmacist analyst who has fought the same auditor on the same issue before. Start with PAAS, then add the evidence layer underneath it. In that order, 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. 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 the two together take less of your staff time than either one alone.
The capability that carries most of this weight on our side is 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 generically rather than by a brand name, because the only page carrying a brand name for it read as member testimonial copy rather than as a product description. We also avoid the term "self-audit tools": 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. Tell us if something here is out of date and we will fix it. sales@attergo.com