Medicine Shoppe International (MSI) has teamed with Outcomes Pharmaceutical Health Care to collaborate on the delivery of medication therapy management services nationwide. The partnership brings over 700 pharmacies into the Outcomes network.

After pharmacists at each pharmacy have completed the Outcomes training program, they will be eligible to begin providing services to Outcomes-eligible patients. Covered services include an annual comprehensive medication review.

“This collaboration will help pharmacists to further advance their consultative services while assisting patients to achieve optimal therapy results,” says Brand Newland, Outcomes VP. Speaking for MSI, Cheryl Hoffer, director of government programs and managed healthcare, notes that “our previous success with MTM case execution will support providing high-value patient care under the Outcomes program.”   

Outcomes has recently introduced new system features to help pharmacists identify and resolve drug therapy problems, while increasing the return on investment for the company’s MTM program sponsors. Pharmacists may now receive real-time, color-coded messaging to highlight missed opportunities for resolving drug therapy problems.

The word from Outcomes is that pharmacists should keep in mind that drug therapy problems can be identified from a comprehensive medication review. This can also happen during prescription processing or while making calls after the patient has initiated a new or changed therapy.

Pharmacists participating in the Outcomes program are encouraged to improve their pharmacy’s overall quality assurance rating. To do this they should strive to achieve MTM best practices. These include the identification and resolution of at least one drug therapy problem for every five patient education and monitoring consultations. These can also include a prescriber consultation.

Another goal is to resolve two or three drug therapy problems as a result of each comprehensive medication review (CMR). The company encourages use of its CMR worksheet, available on the Outcomes Web site, to help guide the identification of problems during the review.