CVS Health study: ReadyFill program drives improvement in Medication Possession Ratio
WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Health's ReadyFill prescription refill program helped improve Medication Possession Ratio - a measurement of medication adherence - by three points among patients receiving a 30-day supply, as compared to a control group, the retailer announced Monday.
“Medication adherence is a complex public health challenge, and our ongoing research in this area has identified many reasons why people don’t always take their medications as prescribed by their doctor,” William Shrank, CVS Health’s SVP and chief scientific officer, said. “Our prescription refill program is helping to address one challenge of medication adherence by making the prescription refill process easier and more convenient without contributing to drug oversupply, which is a common concern with these types of programs.”
The new research, published in the American Journal of Managed Care, is the first to show the impact of prescription refill programs on medication adherence.
For those patients receiving 90-day supplies of chronic medications, their MPR was 1.4 points higher than the control group. In addition, those enrolled in the refill program who received 30-day fills had 2.5 fewer days of oversupply than those in the control group, and those receiving 90-day fills had 2.18 fewer days of oversupply.
“We created the ReadyFill program to help encourage adherence by providing customers with easy access to an appropriate and adequate medication supply,” added Joshua Flum, EVP pharmacy services, CVS Health. “ReadyFill is just one of several adherence services that we offer to help improve health outcomes and reduce total health care costs.”
The study evaluated integrated data of more than 250,000 CVS/caremark members who filled 30- or 90-day prescriptions for at least one of 11 common chronic conditions at a CVS/pharmacy. The researchers compared MPR and average days of excess medication on hand at the time of refill for a sample of members who chose to enroll in the CVS/pharmacy refill program to a control sample that filled prescriptions using traditional methods.
CVS Health launched ReadyFill in 2009. The program coordinates refills for eligible maintenance prescriptions to save customers time and help them stay on track with their medications without contributing to prescription oversupply. Those who choose to enroll in the program receive reminder messages when their prescription is ready to be picked up. Concerns had previously been raised about the potential of these programs to produce drug waste by reducing a patient’s involvement in the dispensing process, which could result in unnecessary health care spending.