Medication Therapy Management

NEXDOSE® : A Unique Solution for Medication Therapy Management

Not taking medications properly has become an enormous health problem. Some experts have even termed the failure of patients to take medication properly as "America's other drug problem." Not taking medication properly, or noncompliance, involves millions of Americans and costs our healthcare system billions of dollars annually.

In 1993 "The Task Force for Compliance" published a report estimating that the failure of patients to take medication appropriately costs our country more than $100 billion annually. Factors contributing to this enormous cost: 23% of nursing home admissions are related to patients’ inability to self medicate; 11.4% of admissions of elderly patients to acute care facilities was a direct result of medication noncompliance; in 1990 nearly 2 million hospital admissions could be attributed directly to noncompliance. Current day numbers are even greater and place a tremendous burden on the resources available through government and private insurers.

The Federal Government and Private Health Care Insurers are recognizing that Medication Therapy Management offers the opportunity to significantly reduce this financial burden. Studies have shown that with Medication Therapy Management, which includes tracking, monitoring and counseling, patients can learn to take their medications appropriately and that this leads to better outcomes and reduced health care costs.

Since 2006 Medicare Advantage providers have been required to provide Medication Therapy Management services to some patients enrolled in their health plans. The Federal Government sees this as a way to improve health outcomes while at the same time saving money in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. If private insurers introduce Medication Therapy Management programs they should see the same opportunities to achieve improved outcome at reduced cost.

NexDose® provides the ideal platform for delivering Medication Therapy Management services. The NexDose® digital assistant provides the patient with dose-by-dose reminders to take medication and collects patient compliance data. The device remotely connects to NexDose® Internet services for programming and data analysis. The NexDose® Internet database provides a central storage point for all patient medication therapy data that can be accessed by authorized members on the patient’s healthcare team. More Information