This is an interesting model for managing complex pharmacy need. Does anybody know of a Michigan program like this?.....
To establish a pilot project that allocates funding for Tennessee pharmacists to provide medication therapy management (MTM) to Medicaid beneficiaries by incorporating them into a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) care model, it can’t hurt that the bill’s state Senate sponsor is a pharmacist himself. And his counterpart in the House? A physician. Even before the law was signed by Gov. Bill Haslam, pharmacists and physicians were already teaming up to improve the health of Tennesseans.
The pilot project is the result of legislation (HB 628/SB 398) introduced by Tennessee Sen. Ferrell Haile (R-18), BSPharm. The House of Representatives’ version was sponsored by Tennessee Rep. Sabi “Doc” Kumar (R-66), MD.
The 2-year pilot project recognizes pharmacists as Medicaid providers and arranges for pharmacists in collaborative practice agreements (CPAs) with physicians and practices to be reimbursed for providing MTM to the sickest and most expensive patients enrolled in the state Medicaid program, TennCare. It comes at a time when most states are taking a hard look at the future of their Medicaid programs.
“We’re not sure what’s going to be coming out of Washington concerning health care, and so we need to be in a position to utilize dollars most efficiently,” said Haile. “This addresses the sickest and costliest patients, going back to the two things that we’re concerned about—patient care and cost. This attacks both of those problems aggressively.”
As a pharmacist himself, Haile understands how effective pharmacists can be in these efforts. “This is not an expansion of services. This is what we’ve been doing our entire careers. It has not been utilized near to the full degree of its potential,” Haile said.
The law addresses how pharmacy technicians can accommodate the new workflow. “As we place pharmacists in positions to provide more care, we have to maximize the role of our pharmacy technicians and get them more involved in the provision of the care as part of the pharmacy team,” said Micah Cost, PharmD, MS, executive director of the Tennessee Pharmacists Association.