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April 2, 2014
More States Considering Medication Synchronization
Payment Legislation Hartford, CT—Medication synchronization has been a hot issue in state legislatures over the past few years. For example, a new law, passed in 2013, went into effect in Connecticut in January requiring insurance plans to cover the costs of synchronizing the refills of multiple prescriptions. Similar legislation is being considered this year in a variety of states, including Oregon, Idaho, and Missouri. Now, a new study commissioned by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) documents the benefits of medical synchronization programs, noting that patients at community pharmacies who get their refills at the same time average more than 100 additional days on therapy per year and are 30% more likely to take their medication as prescribed than patients not enrolled in a synchronization program. The study, conducted by the NCPA and its technology partner Ateb, involved more than 1,300 patients enrolled in medication synchronization programs at 10 independent community pharmacies across the country. Overall, patients receiving synchronization services averaged an additional 103 days on therapy compared to those not getting all of their drugs on the same date—337 versus 234, respectively. In fact, almost 90% of patients with synchronized medications were deemed adherent as measured by the Proportion of Days Covered (PDC), as opposed to just 56% of patients not receiving synchronized refills. In this study, patients in the medication synchronization program also received a monthly call from their pharmacy to discuss medications and dosing instructions, to determine whether any physician visits or hospitalizations may have changed medication therapy, and to confirm that the patient still has a need for the medication before it is dispensed. “This study confirms that a personalized medication synchronization service delivered by community pharmacies is impactful, scalable, and able to be replicated in any community pharmacy,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, MBA. “It’s also further evidence of the positive impact that these and other types of pharmacy-provided services can have on patient health.” An average of 3.4 more refills per prescription were received over a 12-month period by patients enrolled in the medication synchronization program than nonenrolled patients according to the study, which noted that with enrolled patients receiving an average 5.9 synchronized medications, participating pharmacies filled 20 more prescriptions per year on average for the enrollees. In addition, the medication synchronization reduced first-fill abandonment by more than 90%. The NCPA pointed out that the study was the first to look at medication synchronization in a group of independent pharmacies not under common ownership with the same pharmacy management system. Participating pharmacies used Ateb’s Time My Meds online adherence platform to identify patients for enrolment and to manage the daily operations of the participating pharmacies’ medication synchronization programs, the association said. More than 1,600 community pharmacies are providing medication synchronization services to more than 70,000 patients nationwide through established medication synchronization programs, according to the NCPA, which offers its own Simplify My Meds program used by more than 1,100 independent community pharmacies.
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