Assessing Medicare Beneficiary Eligibility for Medication Therapy Management Programs Using PINNACLE, a National...

Medication therapy management (MTM) is a mandated component of the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act for Part D prescription drug plans and Medicare Advantage plans, authorizing the pharmacist or other qualified provider to identify, resolve, and prevent medication-related problems for patients with chronic diseases. MTM programs have been shown to improve medication adherence and reduce medication errors while reducing overall costs in patients with cardiovascular (CV) disease; however, MTM has been greatly underutilized for patients with chronic diseases.

To identify the proportion of Medicare beneficiaries who are eligible for, and who could potentially benefit from, participating in MTM among patients enrolled in the National Cardiovascular Data Registry's PINNACLE Registry.

Patient MTM eligibility is based on the presence of multiple chronic diseases and meeting a minimum annual insurance medication costs. We used patient data from 462 academic and private cardiology practices in the United States who participated in the PINNACLE Registry between May 1, 2008, and September 30, 2010, to determine Medicare beneficiaries' eligibility to participate in an MTM program for patients meeting the MTM criteria of (1) a number of chronic diseases (in this case, the number of CV conditions) and (2) an estimated minimum annual medication expenses, using a weighted average cost calculated based on the average wholesale price of the most often prescribed medications, by class, as extracted from the HealthCore Integrated Research Database and weighted according to prescribing frequency within a class.

Among the Medicare beneficiaries in the PINNACLE Registry, 93,089 (58%) had ≥3 chronic CV conditions, and the median annual estimated medication expenditure per patient enrolled in the PINNACLE Registry was $1329. Of the total of 93,089 Medicare beneficiaries, 21.4% were eligible for MTM, based on the 2010 minimum eligibility criterion of an annual insurer medication expenditure of $3000 or more. These costs ranged from $366 for low-cost generics to $3958 for the highest-cost drug in a class. In addition, based on the 2010 minimum eligibility rule, the proportion of patients eligible for MTM ranged from 7.9% for those eligible for MTM for low-cost generics to 64% of patients eligible for MTM for the highest-cost medication in a class.

These data serve to raise awareness regarding patients' potential eligibility to receive the benefits of MTM programs. Providers caring for patients with multiple CV conditions, including specialists such as cardiologists, should explain to eligible patients about MTM programs and encourage these patients to take advantage of such programs.