It’s a fact:  People don’t take their medicine correctly.  Poor adherence or lack of compliance to prescription medication therapy costs the U.S. billions of dollars each year!

You may or may not be aware that medication adherence and compliance is a hot topic today. Over $290 billion dollars is spent annually as a result of poor medication adherence.

Poor medication therapy adherence costs over $290 billion each year.

And when you start to look at the costs of adverse drug events, inappropriate or ineffective therapy, you’re looking at somewhere between 1/2 to 1 trillion dollars spent in the U.S. annually over and above the cost of the drugs prescribed to treat U.S. patients.

Pharmacists are able to help control many of these costs through comprehensive medication reviews and medication therapy management MTM.

As we become more conscious of healthcare costs we are seeing how pharmacist MTM services will help control costs within the accountable care organization ACO or continuity of care organization CCO settings that are evolving. Patient centered medical home models have shown that the involvement of a pharmacist, in direct patient care, will help reduce these costs. Utilizing the knowledge base of pharmacists and enlisting them as ‘patient care managers’ would directly improve patient care and save healthcare dollars.

Medication therapy management MTM has been available and covered under Medicare Part D since 2006. Patients who qualify, based on the number of medications prescribed and the number of patient disease states, can receive comprehensive medication reviews at no cost, covered by Medicare Part D.

But pharmacist MTM is also evolving from providing MTM services to only Medicare Part D patients. Many pharmacists are moving forward providing MTM services to patients not covered under Medicare D, including patients who are not covered for MTM services, or those who would be considered private pay patients.

Although patients may not meet the criteria of 3rd party payers for MTM services (# disease states, # meds taken, etc.), these patients can benefit from comprehensive medication reviews. A pharmacist medication review and coaching for patients who are diabetic, hypertensive, COPD, etc., will improve adherence, often saving healthcare expenses and improving patient lives through better medication therapy.

There is a great deal of pharmacist interest in providing independent MTM consultations to these patients who do not fall under the Medicare D category. This is the area of focus Spectrum Health MTM Group is working on to provide comprehensive medication reviews on a much broader scope through a network of individual, independent pharmacist MTM consultants.

Spectrum Health MTM Group is pushing the concept of  pharmacists as patient care managers and helping MTM pharmacists to work with patients and healthcare providers to improve patient lives, improve adherence to medication therapy and reduce healthcare costs.

For more information visit www.ezMTMbiz.com