(1226) Implementation of a Chronic Care Management Program in an Independent Community Pharmacy

Objectives: Chronic care management (CCM) is summarized by Medicare as a critical primary care service that contributes to improving the health of patients who have two or more serious chronic conditions that are expected to last at least a year, or until the death of the patient. CCM allows healthcare providers, including pharmacists with collaborative practice agreements, the opportunity to be paid to support Medicare beneficiaries with chronic diseases in achieving their health goals through services provided outside of face-to-face primary care visits. This quality improvement project aims to implement a pharmacist led chronic care management (CCM) program between an independent community pharmacy and an independent physician clinic to optimize patient medication regimens, improve clinical outcomes, and generate revenue.

Methods: A quality improvement project will be conducted at a single independent community pharmacy to initiate a pharmacist led CCM program with a focus on medication management services to Medicare patients with multiple chronic conditions. Terms of the program will be agreed upon by the participating pharmacy and clinic by establishing a CCM collaborative practice agreement. Qualified patients will be identified through generation of a report based on clinical outcomes and lab values, with the programs first focus being on patients with an A1c above 8%. Identified patients will then be reviewed for eligibility for a CCM appointment by a pharmacist and will be offered the service at the next appointment with their primary care physician (PCP). Eligible patients will then be referred to the pharmacist by their PCP to schedule a 20-minute CCM appointment via phone. Appointments can occur once per month. Implementation outcomes such as adoption, acceptance, and feasibility will be evaluated through survey data collected from participating physicians and mutual patients. Additional quantitative outcomes like number of patient visits, number of pharmacist interventions, and total reimbursement, and qualitative outcomes related to improvement in clinical outcomes will be evaluated following program implementation.

Results: Project implementation and design is currently being reviewed by the participating physician clinic for feasibility and acceptability.

Conclusions: Conclusions will be presented following evaluation of collected results.