Tag: pharmacy

As If I Have Nothing Better To Do

Ask most primary care physicians and they will probably tell you they waste a lot of time getting medications approved for their patients. I just dealt with this for one of my patients. He had been on it for four years, but they wanted some information from me. It seems they didn’t trust my judgement and wanted recent lab work to confirm he wasn’t taking too much, even though I had him on the lowest dose. The patient has insurance with Regence, and OptumRx manages the prescription benefit.

I called OptumRx and they first asked if I was a member or calling from a provider’s office. Well if they had separate numbers for each they wouldn’t have to waste time asking that question. Next they asked for my name and title. Then they asked for my NPI number. Once I gave it to them they looked up my name, so they could have skipped the question of my name and merely confirmed it after they had obtained it from the NPI number. Actually they should have already had my NPI number as it was attached to the prescription, that they paid for, and I’m sure is in their records already as they get that information when physicians apply to see (and bill) their patients.

Next they asked for the patient’s member ID number. I told them I didn’t have it, but I did have the reference number they gave when they asked for me to call. I was told they couldn’t use that information, so they asked for the patient’s name and date of birth. I gave it but the person couldn’t find the patient in their system. So she then asked for that reference number. After a while she said that patient wasn’t in the group she managed and she would have to pass me on to someone else.

The next person again asked some identifying information then wanted to know a test result the patient had, as well as the normal range for that test. I gave the three numbers and she said they would be in contact. Less than 30 minutes later it was approved, but that whole call took 9 minutes! That’s an incredible waste of my time just to give 3 numbers. They could have just asked my nurse to give the lab results to them over the phone or fax it to them and not have wasted my time at all. Besides the time I spent, there was also the time spent by a couple of staff members to get the message to me, and the subsequent fax confirming that it had been approved. We deal with lots of these things every day. If physicians were their paying customers, they’d be out of business with service like that.

Let’s be Clear on ClariSpray

20151010_Europe_1027

Bayer, the maker of Claritin, has a new product, ClariSpray. This is a good product, but with a confusing name. It has nothing to do with Claritin, other than they are both used for allergies (allergic rhinitis).

It’s actually fluticasone nasal spray, the same ingredient as Flonase, a prescription product, but now available over-the-counter.

Their website does takes pains to explain this, but there are some things things they don’t mention. They don’t say how it compares with Flonase or Nasacort. Although there are slight differences, and some people may prefer one over the other, they are basically similar, and just a matter of personal preference. Bayer’s website also doesn’t tell you that you shouldn’t take ClariSpray if you are taking Flonase or Nasocort, or one of the other nasal steroid sprays only available by prescription.

Gluteus Maximus

I ordered atorvastatin (generic Lipitor) for one of my patients with high cholesterol and Medicare Part D coverage. It was denied. We then appealed it (prior authorization). A fax from Maximus Federal Services said their decision was, “UNFAVORABLE.” They said the patient had not tried and failed one of the preferred generic statins (lovastatin or simvastatin). They did note that we could appeal to an Administrative Law Judge.

In fact the person had tried simvastatin, which I had noted on the prior authorization. However the cost savings is minor. According to Goodrx, a 90 day supply of atorvastatin is as low as $19.25 around where I work.  For the equivalent dose of simvastatin it’s $10.06.

Yes, it’s almost half the price, but it’s still a pretty small amount, especially in my patient who had already had a heart attack, and the difference will only get smaller as Lipitor has not been generic for all that long. Contrast that with the staff time wasted dealing with this on both ends. Dealing with this is a pain in the Gluteus Maximus!

Over-the-Counter Confusion

Over-the-(sushi)-counterThe FDA allows some medications to be sold over-the-counter (OTC), generally after patent expiration. Pharmaceutical companies need to prove they are safe to be taken that way. But as more medications become available, the opportunities for confusion increase. I’ve had patients confuse Zantac and Zyrtec. The first is for acid reflux and the second is for allergies. Even if drugs have similar names, a pharmacist usually catches the difference due to the dose written on the prescription. For example, Zantac comes in 75 mg, 150 mg and 300 mg, but Zyrtec is 10 mg. The typical lay person doesn’t know what dosages medications are supposed to be. They just (hopefully) know how many pills to take. So if they don’t read the label, they may take the wrong medication due to getting the names confused.

Anti-inflammatory pain medications are particularly a problem. There are OTC versions (Advil, Motrin, Aleve, etc.) and prescription dose strength versions of those, as well others that do not have a generic version. This class of medications is called non-steroid anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS), and usually people should not take more than one at a time. But not uncommonly I see patients take a prescription one plus an OTC one, not realizing they are similar medications. By doing this you get very little additional benefit, but more risk of side effects.

If you use OTC products, be careful to read the labels carefully. If you are taking prescription medications for the same purpose, or you have any of the conditions they warn you about on the label, check with your physician first.

Drug Shortages and the Joint Commission Stance

Periodically there have been drug shortages in the United States, which comes as a surprise to many. There are a number of reasons for this.

Recently one of my company’s pharmacists informed the physicians in my group of a nationwide shortage of bupivicaine and lidocaine, medications used for anesthesia, similar to what your dentist may give you before drilling your tooth.

I suggested that maybe we should be allowed to use such products past the expiration date until the shortage was resolved. They replied that they can’t do that because of Joint Commission standards.

So I wrote to the Joint Commission and eventually spoke with a nurse there. Their position was that it’s not safe to use a drug past its expiration date and they were just following guidelines by the Food and Drug Administration and others. I said that although I would generally agree that it is preferable not to use expired medications, in the case of shortages that may not be the case.

Imagine you have a life threatening infection with a bacterial organism resistant to all antibiotics but one, and there is a shortage of that antibiotic. In fact the hospital you are in has a box of antibiotics that expires at midnight tonight. They can give you only one dose then will have to throw away the rest, even though antibiotics would normally be given for 10 days and they don’t know when they will be able to get more.

Are you really safer as a result of throwing away the rest of the vials of the only antibiotic to treat your infection? In the interest of fair and balanced discussion I admit that I’ve eaten tuna fish after the date stamped on the can. But seriously, the risk of a complication from a slightly outdated medication is almost non-existent, and certainly less than the risk of going without.

Physicians going on medical missions to third world countries used to bring with them expired medications to administer to patients, the thought being that they were safe and better than nothing. Due to liability concerns, that pretty much doesn’t happen anymore, a fact said Joint Commission nurse brought up. In fact a 1997 article in the New England Journal of Medicine pointed out that at least half of the drugs donated to the Bosnian conflict were unusable because they had expired, and said pharmaceutical companies may have dumped the medications to get tax write offs and avoid disposal costs. That may have been the case, and could be addressed by not granting write offs for expired drugs, but that doesn’t mean they couldn’t have safely used the medications.

A 1979 law required pharmaceutical companies to give a date they guarantee the full potency and safety of a drug. They stand to gain financially when customers throw away good medicine because it has, “expired”. In fact the military conducted a study to see if they could extend how long they keep medications in order to cut back on the cost of destroying and replacing a billion dollars of inventory every 2-3 years. They found that 90% of the more than 100 drugs they tested were safe and effective up to 15 years after the expiration date. This program is now used by the Department of Defense, the Department of Veteran Affairs, the US Postal Service and the Bureau of Federal Prisons.

The nurse at the Joint Commission pointed out that I could decide whether the risk was warranted to use an expired drug. But in reality, I don’t get the chance to even discuss it with a patient to give them a choice. Hospitals risk a large financial penalty, and potentially even being shut down, for violating Joint Commission standards. Those drugs are going to go in the trash the day before they expire, shortage or no shortage.

I think the Joint Commission should modify their standards. At the least it should say that drugs should not be used after the expiration date unless their are shortages, or delivery problems due to disaster, in which case the medications should only be used if there are not suitable alternatives, and it’s felt that the benefits exceed the risks.

Medication Errors

Not infrequently Express Scripts, Medco, or other similar companies send a fax to alert me that my patient is taking two similar medications. Occasionally it’s intentional, but most of the time it means something went wrong.

Sometimes I change a patients’ medication to something similar to achieve better efficacy, to minimize side effects, or due to cost. Although I always put the changes in writing for the patient, telling them what to start and what to stop, this doesn’t always work. Patients may get an automatic refill of the original medication from the pharmacy or call it in when they notice a pill bottle is almost empty. Sometimes they go by a medication list they’ve generated, but not updated, rather than the printout I give them.

Sometimes patients end up on two similar medications after getting one from a specialist who doesn’t realize a patient is taking something, because the patient didn’t bring the list I gave them, and they don’t remember everything they take. For example I might have the patient on lisinopril for hypertension, and their cardiologist prescribes the similar benazepril.

A similar medication error happens when we tell patients to stop a medication and they don’t for similar reasons as above.

So the faxes are helpful when these things are caught, but it would be better if it occurred at the the time the prescription is sent to the pharmacy.  Ideally the pharmacy computer would automatically connect to the physician’s electronic medical record (EMR), particularly the primary care doctor, and compare medication lists. If they had medications to refill that didn’t match the EMR record, they would call to double check if the patient could not give them a good reason for the discrepancy. In addition, the pharmacy computer could keep track of all the chronic medications a patient has filled. If the patient doesn’t get the prescription refilled in a timely manner, their computer would query the physician computer to make sure it was still an active medication. If so they would call the patient (and maybe in the future talk to the patient’s medication list carried on their computer/mobile device) and remind them to refill their medication, assuming someone hadn’t stopped it, the patient was taking samples, or some other good reason.

If you use a program such as Quicken, you can download credit card and other transactions and reconcile them with entries you’ve entered. Comparing medications would be a similar process.

There are certainly barriers to such a solution. Electronic health records would need to have medication fields standardized, and there would need to be protocols to exchange the information. I’m not sure, but I think some of this already exists. Of course there are legal issues such as HIPAA.

As John Lennon said, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. I hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will be as one.”

%d bloggers like this: