1 Billion Medication Errors Prevented Over 10 years
Pharmacy benefit manager solutions prevent 1 billion medication errors
Over the next 10 years, PBMs will help prevent 1 billion medication errors (approximately 100 million per year).
These averted medication errors are most prevalent in the Medicare population, since the elderly take more prescription drugs and are more likely to have drug duplication or drug interactions.
Each time a patient uses their insurance for a new prescription, PBMs perform drug utilization review (DUR) to alert pharmacies and doctors if the newly prescribed drug might interact with other drugs being taken by the patient.
Since many patients have several doctors, and more than 40% use more than one pharmacy, only PBMs have the most comprehensive records to check for drug-drug interactions.
PBMs Improve Patient Outcomes: Diabetes
Diabetes is the most prevalent chronic disease in the US, affecting 30 million Americans.
PBMs help improve drug therapy and patient adherence in diabetic patients, resulting annually in:
- Kidney disease being prevented in 230,000 patients;
- Heart failure being prevented in 480,000 patients;
- Stroke being prevented in 180,000 patients; and
- Amputations being prevented in 8,000 patients.
PBMs Improve Patient Outcomes:
Specialty pharmacy management offered by PBMs will add more than 1 million quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) for patients with multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis over ten years (2017-26).
A quality-adjusted life year (QALY) is a relative measure of the ability of alternative treatments to extend life and enable people to maintain normal daily activities when living with chronic illness.
