Pharmacists as accessible health care providers: quantifying the opportunity
| Autor: | Samantha N Valliant, Sabree C Burbage, Shweta Pathak, Benjamin Y Urick |
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| Rok vydání: | 2022 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | J Manag Care Spec Pharm |
| ISSN: | 2376-1032 2376-0540 |
| Popis: | BACKGROUND: Community pharmacists are well positioned to improve patient access to care, which may assist value-based care programs in reaching patients. While pharmacy accessibility is broadly acknowledged, much of the research supporting accessibility claims is poor quality. OBJECTIVE: To quantify the accessibility of pharmacists in comparison with physicians or qualified health care professionals (QHP) in a commercially insured population. METHODS: IBM MarketScan claims data from 2018 were used for this cross-sectional study. Beneficiaries included in the primary analysis were aged 18-64 years, enrolled with pharmacy benefits in 2018 for 12 months, and had at least 1 valid prescription drug claim or evaluation and management (E&M) code in 2018. Unique pharmacy visits were defined using a 6-day fill window for prescription fill dates, while visits to physicians or other QHP were defined as unique service dates tied to an E&M code. We assessed differences in visit frequency for the full sample, those with multiple chronic conditions (MCC), and “superutilizers” (top 5% based on total cost of care). Our statistical approach included descriptive statistics and the Wilcoxon sign rank test. RESULTS: After applying the inclusion criteria, 11,720,958 beneficiaries were included in the full sample. The MCC cohort contained 13.8% of the total sample (mean [SD] age: 50.8 [10.8]; 908,880 [56.1%] female). Finally, the superutilizers were 57.3% female with an average age of 48.4 years and comprised 5.3% of the total sample. The median number of pharmacy and physician or QHP visits for the full sample were 5 and 3 (P |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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