Health Services Accessibility
Conditions
Brief summary
Specialty medications often have dispensing restrictions which can be dictated by manufacturer limited distribution strategies, narrow insurance networks, or a combination of both. Unfortunately, this may result in patients being required to use 2 or more pharmacies to fill their prescription medications; this is referred to as multiple pharmacy use (MPU). The investigators' plan is to administer a survey to patients who have been prescribed one or more specialty medications to evaluate the prevalence of MPU in this population as well as to investigate patients' attitudes about MPU and potential factors increasing the likelihood of MPU
Detailed description
The investigators will identify patients from participating member sites via a review of prescribing records for specific specialty medications. Patients will be contacted via telephone to explain the purpose and risk of the study. Consented patients will then be asked a series of 11 questions about their attitudes and experience with taking and obtaining their specialty medication(s). Additional demographic and clinical information about patients will be collected via chart review.
Interventions
OTHERSurvey
Multiple Pharmacy Use Survey
Sponsors
University of Illinois at Chicago
University of California, Los Angeles
University of Washington
The Cleveland Clinic
Johns Hopkins University
Study design
Allocation
NA
Intervention model
SINGLE_GROUP
Primary purpose
HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH
Masking
NONE
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
18 Years to No maximum
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* Subjects 18 years of age or older * English-speakers * An active patient of a performance institution and ability to provide informed consent to participate with the survey * Electronically prescribed at least one specialty medication by a performance site provider, which can be either a new or renewed order, within the last 3 months
Exclusion criteria
* Subjects less than 18 years of age * Non-English speakers * Patients that cannot or are unwilling to provide consent * Patients who have not had a new or renewed specialty medication prescription order placed electronically within the last 3 months
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Percentage of Patients using Multiple Pharmacies | Within one year of study initiation | Of all patients consented, the percentage of patients using more than one pharmacy to obtain their medications |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Self-reported adherence and barriers | Within one year of study initiation | Patient response to questions about having missed doses in the past month |
| Method of obtaining medications | Within one year of study initiation | Patient response to questions about distance from pharmacy and how prescriptions are primarily obtained |
| Experience with obtaining and administering medications | Within one year of study initiation | Patient response to questions about how easy it is for patients to obtain and administer medication |
Countries
United States
Outcome results
None listed