5 Benefits of Medication Therapy Management Services for Patient Care

Comprehensive medication management (CMM) is a unique service offered by pharmacists. It involves an in-depth evaluation of a patient’s entire medication regimen. This ensures that the medications are used safely, effectively, and cost-efficiently. This includes identifying any drug therapy problems and recommending solutions. Those problems may include a high dose, an unnecessary medication, or a potentially harmful interaction.

Improved Adherence

Medication therapy management services are critical in integrated healthcare systems and can improve healthcare outcomes and expenditures. Medication management involves a patient-centered approach to identifying and resolving drug therapy problems. These issues may include adherence to medication regimens. These unnecessary medications increase the risk of adverse events and interactions or complex drug regimens that can be simplified for better therapeutic outcomes.

Research has shown that improved adherence is one of the most significant benefits of MTM services. Medication not prescribed can lead to negative clinical outcomes, such as high blood pressure or elevated cholesterol reading, and increased hospital admissions and readmissions. Fortunately, there are ways to prevent non-adherence. Medication therapy managers can help patients identify and overcome the barriers that interfere with adherence, such as a lack of understanding or a fear of side effects. This can lead to lower overall costs because a patient only takes the drugs that are truly necessary to achieve optimal health. Many health plans offer MTM as a member benefit to improve medication adherence and control overall costs. However, few studies examine the impact of MTM on racial/ethnic minority populations. 

Reduced Side Effects

Medication therapy management (MTM) is comprehensive service pharmacists provide—the medication experts on the health care team. Pharmacists offer MTM services in all healthcare settings where patients take medications. MTM services include drug utilization reviews, pharmacotherapy consultations, anticoagulation management, immunizations, and other clinical services that optimize medication outcomes for each patient. The services also identify and prevent adverse events from mismanaging the patient’s drug regimen.

One benefit of MTM is reducing side effects from certain medications, especially those used to treat depression and addictions. These medications can have very harsh or even dangerous side effects for some individuals. MTM helps reduce these side effects so that patients can enjoy a higher quality of life and continue their treatment without visiting the emergency room or seeing their physician for complications.

Another benefit of MTM is that it can help reduce health costs for the entire population. Research has shown that patients with more than one chronic disease state and who receive medication therapy management services experience lower healthcare costs than those without. This is because the MTM services can prevent drug interactions, identify and resolve non-adherence issues and ensure that each patient gets the best possible outcomes from their medications.

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Lower Overall Cost

Medication therapy management emphasizes ensuring that each person in recovery is using the right medication. This helps eliminate medications that aren’t working or creating complications, saving money in the long run. Medications for substance use disorder and mental health treatment can be expensive, so eliminating unnecessary medication will help keep out-of-pocket spending down.

A study examining pharmacy and medical claims over ten years found that MTM services reduced costs by an average of $2-$3 per person. This was primarily due to reducing hospitalizations and emergency room visits caused by side effects from uncontrolled medications.

Another way that MTM reduces cost is through disease state management programs. These programs are based on the principles of coordinated healthcare and empower patients to manage their care through patient education, self-management strategies, and medication therapy management. They have been developed for various diseases, including hypertension, diabetes, asthma, COPD, heart failure, Parkinson’s, depression, and Alzheimer’s.

Better Health

Anyone who takes prescription medications, over-the-counter drugs, or dietary supplements can benefit from medication therapy management services. People with multiple health conditions, complex drug regimens, or questions about their medications may especially benefit from these services, which can help them manage their medicines more effectively.

Medication therapy management (MTM) is a comprehensive service provided by pharmacists, the drug experts on your healthcare team, that optimizes therapeutic outcomes. It includes:

• Systematically collecting patient information.
• Assessing medication therapies to identify and prioritize drug-related problems.
• Creating a plan to resolve them.

MTM is part of a new wave of clinical pharmacy services focusing on helping patients live healthier lives by actively managing their drug therapy, identifying and preventing adverse events, and improving medication adherence. This includes services like comprehensive medication reviews (CMR), pharmacotherapy consultations, anticoagulation management, and immunizations.

Tracking Medications

As pharmacists are also often involved in care management, they can help patients change their medication regimen if it’s not working. For example, a pharmacist might recommend switching medications based on side effects, drug interactions, or cost.

But this is often just one part of a larger plan to increase patient adhesion, including setting realistic goals and educating about the importance of following doctor’s orders. Additionally, tracking adherence through solutions such as digital pill monitors can be helpful, as can compliance packaging; sorting pills into easy-to-manage packages that detail frequency and time of day for each dose can make it more likely to be taken.

Finally, pharmacist-provided services like medication synchronization can help patients avoid gaps in their medication regimen and reduce unintentional nonadherence by coordinating the patient’s monthly prescription refills to be picked up simultaneously each month. This can create more opportunities for an MTM session or counseling and better pharmacy inventory management by creating a more predictable daily prescription volume.