Value of a Pharmacy-Adjudicated Community Care Prior Authorization Drug Request Service

Many veterans are eligible to receive prescriptions from community-based pharmacies. Swift and accurate review of prior authorization drug requests by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) pharmacy is necessary to mitigate treatment delays, medication misuse, adverse drug events, medication errors, and unnecessary cost to the health care system.

We performed a retrospective review of community care prior authorization drug requests to assess the direct cost savings achieved through a centralized process and to characterize submitted requests.

The centralized community care pharmacy team demonstrated a cost savings of $515,872.31 over 6 months and increased patient safety. Community care prior authorization drug requests had a 46.2% approval rate. Coordination of care took an average of 8 days.

Use of a centralized community care pharmacy team could result in significant annual cost savings for the VA. Considering the approval rate seen in this study, VA could allocate resources to educate community-based prescribers about its formulary to increase the approval rate and reduce administrative burden for VA pharmacies and prescribers.