Financial impact of patients enrolled in a medication adherence program at an independent community pharmacy

Objectives: To determine the financial impact of attributed patients enrolled in a medication adherence program at Community Pharmacy Enhanced Services Network (CPESN) pharmacies.

Setting: Five independently owned Moose Pharmacy locations in rural North Carolina, which are CPESN pharmacies.

Practice description: Moose Pharmacy has a longstanding history of innovative change. Each Moose Pharmacy location provides enhanced pharmacy services, including adherence packaging, medication synchronization programs, immunizations, home visits, home delivery, comprehensive medication review, disease state management programs, point-of-care testing, and compounding.

Practice innovation: Certain CPESN pharmacies, including Moose Pharmacy, were attributed complex Medicare or Medicaid patients having at least 1 chronic medication and at least 80% of medications filled at a CPESN pharmacy. Patients were included if they were attributed to a study location and enrolled in the Moose Medication Adherence Program (MooseMAP) for more than 12 months. Patients were excluded if they were younger than 18 years of age or had less than 12 months of prescription fill data. Reviewed data included patient demographics, chronic and acute medications, immunizations, MooseMAP type, number of chronic medication prescribers, chronic medication class, payer, and patient health risk indicators. Yearly profit for prescriptions filled was determined per patient. Independent-samples t test was used to assess data.

Evaluation: Yearly profit per prescription was $10.35 for combined chronic, acute, and immunization prescriptions, $10.57 for chronic prescriptions, $26.95 for acute prescriptions, and $27.69 for immunizations. Mean profit for strip packaging was $1561.82 per year compared with $1208.01 per year with bottles (P = 0.021). There was a positive correlation between profit and number of prescriptions filled per 12 months (r = 0.56; P < 0.001), number of medication classes (r = 0.27; P < 0.001), and higher-risk indicator scores (r = 0.21; P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Enrolling complex patients in a medication adherence program can benefit community pharmacies, particularly CPESN pharmacies, through chronic medication fills and yearly profit. Greater profit is generated when prescriptions are dispensed in strip packaging instead of bottles.