In talking to some CVS Pharmacists… when they have their annual job review… some have stated that the magic number is FIFTY PER-CENT… if your Rx dept doesn’t have at least 50% of your refills as auto fills… your job performance rating takes a DING !
Even the best of patients is not going to be 100% compliant…100% of the time… working in LTC.. I often see nursing staff requesting a STAT delivery… when the patient was furnished a 30 days supply 5-8 weeks before.. if patients in a nursing home… who are suppose to receive their medication administered by a healthcare professional can’t be 100% compliant… how do we expect John Q Public to be there.
NCPA has developed a program that really focuses on compliance… they have stats out there that if you work with patients to get all of their maintenance meds filled on the same day every month.. they become more compliant in taking their medications… isn’t this what it is all about.
I would suspect these independent pharmacists don’t waste their time returning drugs to stocks that were not picked up.
If the chains were really interested in helping patients with compliance.. and not just billing out meds … they would reconfigure their program that they did the auto fill and NOT BILL the PBM until the patient picked them up. Doesn’t take a RPH to complete the billing process on already filled Rxs… maybe just like scanning a bar code on each Rx?
Of course, if they did this type of billing process.. maybe the LA TIMES wouldn’t have had a recent article http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-lazarus-20121012,0,1032269.column#tugs_story_display about CVS billing processes being investigated by Medicare .
Filed under: General Problems
We are here for the patients! We are supposed to help our patients in every way possible. Instead of killing us with autofill and early billing, we need to find alternatives that pay us. The alternatives need to increase patient MTMs. We can find other ways to be paid and force insurance companies to pay us because we saved them money.
I feel for the CVS pharmacists. It is really stressful to work for a company that gets continuous bad press. I know because I’ve had to work in that situation. Anytime that I have had an Rx filled at CVS the pharmacist has always been very professional. I hope everyone remembers that the pharmacist on the front line is not the problem.