Content about Medication therapy management

LEESBURG, Va. — A group that claims a membership of more than 20,000 pharmacies nationwide has appointed a new member to its leadership team.

RxAlly announced that it had hired John Miall as national practice leader for integrated care initiatives. Miall will work with payers, government agencies and others on commercial, self-funded, Medicaid and Medicare programs through medication therapy management and other pharmacist-based care models.

The fourth annual National Association of Chain Drug Stores RxImpact Day on Capitol Hill wrapped up March 22 on a high note. With pharmacists and pharmacy students from around the country able to secure more than 350 meetings with members of the U.S.

The number of patients with diabetes is not decreasing any time soon, and one of the most important fronts in the battle lies at the pharmacy counter.


About $290 billion a year. That’s what Americans’ rampant nonadherence to their prescription medication therapy is costing the country each year in medical bills and lost work, according to national estimates. So getting patients to stick with their drug regimens is a huge challenge, not only for pharmacists in all practice settings, but for the entire healthcare provider network and the U.S. economy.

Message to Congress: You’ve got to spend a little money to save a lot of it. Paying $100 million to the nation’s community pharmacists to provide comprehensive medication therapy management to more American seniors would save Medicare $1 billion or more. Spend $200 million and save $2 billion ... you get the picture.

NEW YORK — Two members of Congress are looking for co-sponsors for a bill that would strengthen the medication therapy management benefit in the Medicare prescription drug program.

Last year, Rep. Mike Ross, D-Ala.; and Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., introduced H.R. 891, the Medication Therapy Management Benefits Act, which would allow elderly people with at least one chronic condition access to Medicare Part D coverage for MTM. Currently, only those with multiple conditions are eligible.

As we welcome a new year, it is exciting to see all the changes headed our way. With all the movement around healthcare reform and technology, we in the pharmacy industry are quick to point out that this industry is years ahead of the rest of health care in terms of payment solutions and automated workflow. The rest of the industry is running to catch up — but right now the pharmacy industry is far from where we need to be to address critical factors in our industry.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — If you want to change any kind of misguided perception that pharmacists are mere pill-counters and quality assurance specialists who stand behind a counter with a team of pharmacy technicians, then you've got to do something dramatic. Placing the pharmacist front and center in an "information booth" armed with a technophile-friendly iPad who is proactively interacting with patients — that's dramatic.

While medication nonadherence is a perennial problem that costs the healthcare system $290 billion per year, one of the least explored facets of it is primary nonadherence, when patients receive new prescriptions on paper or electronically and never drop them off or pick them up. But some researchers hope to change that.


WASHINGTON — The American Pharmacists Association is marking American Pharmacists Month by pushing people to work with their pharmacists to combat and control diabetes.

The APhA is promoting services that pharmacists can provide, such as medication therapy management, counseling on physical activity and nutrition, blood-glucose monitoring and guidance on healthy behavior and health maintenance.

WASHINGTON — A groundbreaking call center at the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy that delivers medication therapy management services to patients with chronic illnesses utilizes pharmacy technicians certified by the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board.