Study Focus

Generate concrete evidence on the impacts of the real-time prescription benefits standards.

Findings

• Medication affordability contributes to prescription abandonment, but evidence on whether real-time prescription benefit (RTPB) tools improve fill rates remains limited. NYU Grossman School of Medicine, through a grant funded by the NCPDP Foundation, analyzed 38,289 prescription orders using a clustered randomized design. Findings indicate that RTPB use did not significantly affect overall fill rates. However, with RTPB tools in place, fill rates were higher for the highest-cost drug classes and among patients with the lowest income. These findings suggest RTPB tools may improve prescription access for patients facing greater cost burdens and help reduce income-related disparities.

View Results

Study Focus

Finding new and innovative ways to help lower patient cost burdens

Findings

• Analysis showed reduced medication spending per member per month (PMPM) of almost 4% for the analysis group participants (application users). Patient spending on generic medications represented 8.5% less total spending for the analysis group when compared with the control group. Further analysis also showed a 2.1% reduction in non-generic medication spending for the analysis group as compared with the control group. Analysis participants engaged with the application over 5 times on average during the 180-day project period and averaged more than 3.1 RTPB requests per application session. The use of RTPB transactional information by patients to make informed decisions regarding prescription selections has an impact on lowering out-of-pocket patient costs likely leading to increased medication adherence and improved patient experience. This, in turn, would decrease burden for physicians and pharmacists.

View Press Release

View Results

Study Focus

Integrate pharmacogenomic data into pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) systems and/or pharmacy benefit administrator modules and then push resulting clinical alerts to pharmacists, which will help speed patient access to the best medication therapy.

Findings

• Pharmacogenomics (PGx) is a critical component of precision medicine, enabling healthcare professionals to tailor medical treatments based on a patient’s unique genetic makeup. This research assesses the capability and impact of embedding PGx results and workflows into the pharmacy claims processing system. The study involved patients on cardiovascular medications, who either completed self-testing kits or underwent in-pharmacy testing. Results were analyzed and integrated into a proprietary medication therapy management tool, with alerts added to the point-ofsale claims processing system for adverse medications. Findings revealed that 95% of patients had PGx-identified medication problems.

View Press Release

View Results

Study Focus

Automate Tracking of Physician Adoption of Pharmacists’ Clinical Recommendation

Findings

• Prescriber action in response to pharmacist recommendations can improve patient care through reduced hospitalizations. This study aimed to investigate prescriber actions to pharmacist recommendations, natural language processing (NLP) to automate acceptance of pharmacists’ recommendations and standardizing Sig medication directions. Researchers found that prescriber action on pharmacist recommendations was highest for ‘laboratory request for evaluation’ at 45.79%. Research also indicated an increased likelihood of action with increased duration of the relationship between the prescriber and the pharmacist. In connection with research on NLP, findings indicated gaps in data elements included within the Qualified Health Information Network (QHIN) finding areas for improved interoperability for NCPDP with their collaborative efforts with TEFCA and the emerging QHIN.

View Results

Study Focus

Determine how reimbursement pathways impact work streams and identify where standardization exists and where there are opportunities for new standards.

Findings

• Pain points have been identified along two payment pathways for DTx products: Prescription Payment Model and Non-Prescription Payment Model. Within the Prescription Payment Model, four NCPDP Standards were identified as utilized within the payment workflow: F&B, RTPB, Telecom, and SCRIPT. Within this model, next steps include additional research with stakeholders to standardize the exchange of data, distribution networks and feedback loops, medical/prescription benefit coverages, and the scope of professionals.

View Results