Abstract
Objective: To determine if pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM) improves medication adherence in Medicare patients. A secondary objective is to compare the total monthly cost of a patient's prescription medication regimen 6 months before and 6 months following a comprehensive medication review (CMR).
 Design: Retrospective analysis of medication adherence, pre-post comparison.
 Setting: Three independent pharmacies in North Carolina.
 Patients: 97 Medicare Part D beneficiaries with one or more chronic disease states who participated in a comprehensive medication review (CMR).
 Intervention: MTM services provided by community pharmacists.
 Main outcome measure: Change in adherence as measured by the proportion of days covered (PDC) and change in medication costs for patients and third party payers.
 Results: Patients were adherent to chronic disease-state medications before and after MTM (PDC≥ 0.8). Overall, change in mean adherence before and after MTM did not change significantly (0.87 and 0.88, respectively; p = 0.43). However, patients taking medications for cholesterol management, GERD, thyroid and BPH demonstrated improved adherence following a CMR. No change in adherence was noted for patients using antihypertensives and antidiabetic agents. Average total chronic disease-state medication costs for participants were reduced from $210.74 to $193.63 (p=0.08) following the comprehensive medication review. Total costs for patient and third party payers decreased from patients prescribed antilipemics, antihypertensives, GERD and thyroid disorders following a CMR.
 Conclusions: Pharmacist-provided MTM services were effective at improving medication adherence for some patients managed with chronic medications. Pharmacist-provided MTM services also were effective in decreasing total medication costs.
 Type: Original Research
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