Retrospective Review of Exceptions for Angiotensin-Converting Enzyme Inhibitor or Angiotensin II Receptor Blocker Recommendations for a Diabetic Medicare Population.

BACKGROUND: Renin-angiotensin system (RAS) antagonists are recommended for people with diabetes and hypertension or with elevated urinary albumin excretion. RAS antagonists are beneficial for some, yet clinically inappropriate for others. The percentage of patients for whom RASs are clinically inappropriate has not been compared across health plans. OBJECTIVES: To (a) identify reasons why RAS therapy was not recommended and (b) compare exception percentages between health plans. METHODS: This retrospective, cross-sectional analysis included Medicare Part D beneficiaries with diabetes, enrolled in health plans (n = 96) participating in a university-based medication therapy management (MTM) program between January 1 and December 31, 2013. The MTM program evaluated patient eligibility for RAS therapy via (1) a clinically derived software system assessing demographics and medication history, and (2) telepharmacist-delivered medication reviews. The MTM program database calculated the number of patients with diabetes and percentage of RAS therapy exceptions. RESULTS: An average of 55% of patients with diabetes qualified for MTM (range: 19%-88%). Of the 218,589 eligible, 94,359 had 1 or more reasons contraindicating RAS therapy (exception). For an average of 29% of patients, it was inappropriate to recommend the addition of an RAS antagonist; the overall exception rate ranged from 3% to 83%, suggesting a wide variation of exception rates for all health plans. CONCLUSIONS: A substantial difference existed across health plans where RAS therapy was considered clinically inappropriate to recommend for patients with diabetes. Future research must examine variations in therapy exceptions to understand the effect of encouraging broad-population RAS antagonist use. DISCLOSURES: SinfoníaRx provided funding for this project. Wild, Boesen, and Werner are employed by SinfoniaRx, which provided grant funding to the University of Arizona College of Pharmacy for the conduct of this study. This project was presented at the AMCP 27th Annual Meeting and Expo; April 8-10, 2015; San Diego, CA.

Accepting Medication Therapy Management Recommendations to Add ACEIs or ARBs in Diabetes Care.

BACKGROUND: National guidelines and initiatives have promoted the use of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) for patients with diabetes. The University of Arizona Medication Management Center (UA-MMC) is contracted by Medicare health plans, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), and multiple commercial health insurance plans to provide medication therapy management (MTM) services for plan members. As part of the MTM program, recommendations have been made for those patients who may benefit from the addition of an ACEI/ARB. Although the intervention benefits and guidelines for using ACEIs/ARBs are clear, real-world evidence is needed to understand and potentially increase uptake of guideline interventions among eligible patients. OBJECTIVES: To (a) identify patient characteristics that predict acceptance of guideline recommendations to add ACEI/ARB medications to diabetic treatment via MTM services and (b) examine how well different case characteristics (i.e., patient age and sex, type and number of recommendation attempts, type of health care plan) predict the odds of adding ACEI/ARB medications to diabetic regimens when recommended through an MTM call center. METHODS: This was a retrospective analysis of secondary data provided by the UA-MMC. The de-identified national data included adult plan members with diabetes who the UA-MMC recommended adding an ACEI/ARB prescription based on 2012 national guidelines. The UA-MMC made recommendations by either patient letters, patient phone calls, physician faxes, or any combination thereof. We conducted a binary logistic regression analysis to assess the impact of case characteristics on the likelihood of accepting recommendations to add ACEI/ARB medications. The outcome variable was recommendation acceptance (yes/no), defined as new prescription claims for an ACEI/ARB within 120 days following the recommendation. Five predictor variables were assessed: (1) patient's age quartile; (2) method of communicating recommendations (letter, phone call, fax, or some combination thereof); (3) whether recommendations were made once or twice on separate dates; (4) patient's sex; and (5) type of health care plan. RESULTS: Recommendations were made for 31,495 members of health plans or PBMs that contracted with the UA-MMC. Patients' ages ranged from 19-90 (Mean =72.01; SD =10.21), with females comprising 56% of the sample. The recommendation to add ACEI/ARB medications was accepted for 14.5% (4,559) of patients. In most cases (73%), recommendations occurred via a letter to patients together with a fax to their providers. The fitted model, containing 3 predictor variables (age quartile, type of contact to communicate the recommendations, and whether recommendation contacts were made twice), was statistically significant, χ(2) (10; N = 31,495) = 112.82 (P < 0.001), indicating that the model was able to distinguish between those who did and did not accept UA-MMC's recommendations to add ACEI/ARB medications. The likelihood of recommendation acceptance decreased as patient age increased compared with patients in the first age quartile (ages 19-67; P ≤ 0.005 at all levels). Compared with sending only a provider fax, patients who received all 3 types of contact (provider fax with patient phone call and letter) were estimated to be 1.34 times more likely (34% increase) to have recommendation acceptance ( P = 0.004; 95% CI = 1.10-1.63). Similarly, patients who received only letters were also 1.32 times more likely (32% increase) than provider faxes alone to result in recommendation acceptance ( P = 0.003; 95% CI = 1.10-1.59). Patients for whom recommendations were made twice were less likely to have recommendation acceptance than for those contacted once, controlling for all other predictor variables in the model ( P < 0.001; OR = 0.77; 95% CI = 0.69-0.86). CONCLUSIONS: Recommendations to add an ACEI/ARB to diabetic regimens are more likely to be accepted for younger patients and those who receive recommendations through all 3 communication types (provider fax combined with patient phone call and letter) or just letters than provider faxes alone. Further research is needed to understand why prescribers are not accepting MTM recommendations.

Benchmarking the nurse consultant role in rheumatology.

This article demonstrates how the four core standards for the nurse consultant role have been developed and applied in the field of rheumatology. The authors suggest that the standards: expert practice, leadership and service redesign, research and education, are relevant for consultant nurses in all specialties. The standards can be used by other nurse consultants to benchmark their practice.