Comprehensive Medication Management:|What’s In It for Physicians and Other Providers?

The chronic disease patient population at the top stratum for high risk and cost is ballooning from the ever-increasing rate of incident diagnoses of chronic diseases, the aging American population, in addition to the shortage of primary care clinician. High frequency of emergency department visits and long hospital stays are common characteristics of patients in the upper end of the chronic disease severity categories.

The California Right Meds Collaborative (CRMC) seeks to leverage the medication expertise of clinically trained pharmacists and position them as members of the healthcare team focused on optimizing medication safety and efficacy. By establishing Collaborative Practice Agreements (CPA) between primary care providers and clinical pharmacists, pharmacists are enabled to practice within their scope of practice in delivering medication management services such as Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) to high risk patients.

CMM is an evidence-based preventative clinical service proven to decrease health care costs and improve chronic disease control. CMM accomplishes these results by ensuring that medication therapy is appropriate, taken as intended, affordable, and diligently monitored for safety and effectiveness. Patient education, engagement, and activation are also key to the success of CMM services. Other benefits from CMM include increase in patient satisfaction and improved quality of life, provider satisfaction (as patients with complex drug therapies can be referred for CMM services), greater access to primary care other health care providers, improved patient health literacy and self-management activation.