How many times have you left your physician’s office with a prescription that you never filled? Or stopped taking a prescribed medication because of side effects or high cost?
In some cases, not taking your medications as prescribed, referred to as non-adherence, may only cause minor health-related issues. However, when patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart failure, high cholesterol and high blood pressure are non-adherent, they are putting their health at serious catastrophic risk.
Quick Glance at the Non-Adherence (Medication Mismanagement) Numbers:
– 3.9 billion prescriptions were written in 2010
– On average, 50% of patients don’t take their medications as prescribed
– Non-adherence costs the U.S. an estimated $317 billion annually
– $106 billion of that total estimated cost accounts for non-adherence to medications for diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure/heart disease
The Challenge:
One Patient + Multiple Conditions = Multiple Physicians & Multiple Medications
The average Tria Health patient sees four physicians and takes eight medications. As the number of medications increase, so does the level of patient-responsibility for daily management and understanding the purpose for each one. A major component of medication management includes patient communication with physicians about their drug regimen to prevent the risk of over-prescribing or taking medications that don’t interact well with one another.
What’s the solution?
Medication Therapy Management (MTM) is an innovative practice in which a pharmacist takes responsibility to optimize a patient’s medication regimen by ensuring medications are safe, appropriate and effective. Tria Health specializes in providing MTM services and partners with plan sponsors to help reduce over health care costs for them and their plan members. An MTM-focused pharmacist is able to work one-on-one with the patient and their physicians in order to ensure a complete circle of care.
For more information about Tria Health visit www.triahealth.com or call 1.888.799.TRIA (8742).