Mail-Order Pharmacy for IHS?
Last year, someone I know who works at the VA told me that as a pilot program, a VA mail-order facility started filling prescriptions for an IHS site around June/July in South Dakota. And that a site in Oklahoma was thinking about coming on board too. The idea, my friend said, was to get IHS on board with the VA filling their prescriptions through mail-order. My first reaction was that of being completely surprised. Then I tucked the thought away to revisit it after hearing more. Now we are beyond Valentine’s Day in 2012 and to my understanding, this idea may be further along than a pilot idea.
Mail-order for the IHS—what do you think?
My first reaction was wow–this new implementation feels opposite to what the praised IHS pharmacy model of patient care stands for. If mail-order were implemented, patients may miss out on an important opportunity for a timely medication intervention or to get their medication-related questions answered by a pharmacist.
There have been many times while working at an IHS/tribal pharmacy, I remember sharing something important with a patient that had an impact on their medication adherence & health (translating to healthcare cost savings), which would never have come up if I had not interacted with them in person. It’s like talking to your personal trainer on the phone and getting some basic tips vs. seeing your personal trainer through a full workout. He or she gets to hold you accountable in a more impactful way in person. The level of personalized care jumps exponentially.
Then I wondered what the plus side would be. Perhaps there would be easier access to medication for patients. Workload can be taken off current pharmacists’ plate for more clinical work.
But is it realistic to hope that budgets would allow pharmacists to do more clinical work, or will sites end up having a reason to cut the budgets even more when mail-order is implemented?
Comment below (and feel free to post anonymously) about what you think the pros & cons are. Share your opinion and be heard. You’ll get updates in an upcoming issue about the status of this concept and its implementation in IHS, what IHS/tribal pharmacy directors throughout the country think about its impact on our patients & practice, and ideas on how best to make it work.
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