So I was just curious if this was more common than just the area I live in. Currently, I am a pharmacy student in Ohio, and I am fortunate to have a faculty member that has initiated (more years than I've been here) a relationship with PCP's that is very beneficial for our practice. It is still in its very early stages (only one health system in the area [probably 4 health systems total in said area]). She is getting a pharmacist in every PCP office practice, for said practice, to collaborate towards EBM, dose adjust, etc. Is this something that is happening across the country, or is this regionally-specific? I'm more geared towards Critical Care residency, but would like to keep my options open if people have knowledge to share about their trials with this model.
Future or Common Amongst States?
- Thread starter dbarth101
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Ask her who is cutting her a paycheck. Is she faculty or is she an adjunct professor? If the health system isn't dropping a dime on the school funded free labor than we are basically going backwards as we let others freeload our profession.
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i think it's future because there has been proposal to get more pharmacists into doctors' offices and hospitals/clinical settings because the argument is that pharmDs can help reduce lots of errors and decrease costs of healthcare.
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That professor's proposal sounds very APhA-ish, lol. In simple English: sounds great in theory, disastrous in reality.
Evidenced based medicine?
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It's been talked about here (Midwest - couple states West of you) but nothing has come of it to date. I haven't seen an office fund a pharmacist position yet.
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I doubt it will happen unless pharmacists can bill for services and generate revenue for the practice. Why hire a pharmacist at 100k+ when you can get a PA/NP for 75k who can do that kind of work AND bill for their service?
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And even if they can bill and generate revenue you are still looking at 75k or lower. What insurer will want to introduce a new payment rate that is more costly than an alternative that's already in the marketplace?
I'd recommend the approach of supporting the MD if he's in a performance network but if s/he can keep their patients properly managed without a pharmacist than the return on the expense is still low to add one.
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Yes, that is what your school will tell you. This was talked about when I went to school in the 80's, a model where dr's would diagnose and then send the patient with the diagnosis to the pharmacist to get a prescription. I've heard some people who heard it mentioned as far back as the 60's. Reality is, nobody is ever going to pay for it, regardless of how great it might actually be in theory or practice.
At some pharmacy school interviews they painted the future as if there will be two pharmacists working in a retail setting, one doing quality assurance and another essentially counseling patients and walking around the OTC isle helping customers and being able to bill for it lol. Every school emphasized MTM and the "integrated health care approach" in which the pharmacist is talking to doctors all day and helping diabetics.
This would be great, except no retail pharmacy is going to pay two pharmacists. Even if they were able to bill for these services, the money would go to the employer and the pharmacist would be lucky to get an extra hour of overlap for it (Example: flu shots). All it took was 2 months of retail to see how far from reality this model of pharmacy is (as great as it sounds).
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A different possibility is that they will hire additional pharmacists to do MTM and cut salaries significantly. This model would be feasible now that schools are churning out tens of thousands more pharmacists than are needed.
Or they will just continue to make 1 pharmacist do everything and still cut their salary lol. Remember we are talking about companies who won't properly staff their pharmacies with people who are literally making 8 bucks an hour.
Sorry, I've been off SDN for a minute. Finals week was a little stressful, but she is a professor of our school. Spends half her time at school, and the other half at the health system. Definitely makes a paycheck from the health system though.
As far as some of the billing issues that people presented, I think with the new reimbursements from the patient centered medical home it would be more essential for PCP's to have this as they are finding ways to keep patients out of the hospital longer and getting bigger payments. This could easily pay for a pharmacist's salary if you are benefiting greatly with them in the rotation. As always, time will tell. But I think with companies like HealthBridge it will kind of force the hand to this model. At least hopefully!
If I were to be in the community, I think this is the job I would want to have.
As far as some of the billing issues that people presented, I think with the new reimbursements from the patient centered medical home it would be more essential for PCP's to have this as they are finding ways to keep patients out of the hospital longer and getting bigger payments. This could easily pay for a pharmacist's salary if you are benefiting greatly with them in the rotation. As always, time will tell. But I think with companies like HealthBridge it will kind of force the hand to this model. At least hopefully!
If I were to be in the community, I think this is the job I would want to have.
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Evidence based medicine
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