What is the “Affiliate Standard”?
All accredited healthcare merchants must comply with our ten rigorous standards. Standard 10 (the “Affiliate Standard”) requires that a merchant’s Affiliates must also comply with all program standards. For purposes of our program, the term “Affiliate” is defined broadly to include any entity that:
- shares or has shared in the past 12 months ownership with the merchant; or
- may be involved, either directly or indirectly, in the merchant’s services.
Examples include, but are not limited to:
- An entity that shares or has shared in the past 12 months an owner, control, or management level staff with the merchant;
- An entity that shares contact information, such as a phone number or street address, with the merchant;
- An entity that has a formal or informal business relationship with the merchant or its principals;
- Any entity involved in the chain of patient care (eg, downstream fulfillment pharmacies, upstream telemedicine platforms, medical providers); and
- Any website to which the merchant’s website(s) link.
- An entity that operates a pharmacy providing fulfillment services, either formally or informally, for telemedicine platforms must provide information about your telemedicine Affiliates, including modality and licensure information. (See the “Telemedicine Applicants” FAQ.)
- An entity that operates a telemedicine platform that uses one or more fulfillment pharmacies, either formally or informally, must provide information about those pharmacies. See the “Pharmacy Applicants” questions for details regarding the information you will need.
- If you are an entity that is part of a health care organization that includes multiple pharmacies and/or other health care services, our review covers all of these services and entities. For example, if your pharmacy is a single location within a larger health system, we will also review the health system’s other pharmacies and its telehealth services.
We strongly encourage applicants to proactively reach out to their Affiliates to gather the required information before submitting their application.
Tip
NABP has worked with many applicants that have been able to obtain information directly from their Affiliates. In our experience, organizations often have pre-existing documents of this type as part of their internal compliance programs.
Our Affiliate Standard is intended to be applied broadly in order to protect patient safety.