NCPA offers suggestions at House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing

NCPA recommended improvements to benefit patients and taxpayers at a recent House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health hearing about medication therapy management (MTM) in the Medicare Part D program.

NCPA said that MTM can lower healthcare costs while improving the quality of care.

"NCPA believes that prevention is the best medicine, and whether it’s catching a medication error before it leads to a hospitalization or effective chronic disease management, MTM services present an opportunity to improve patient care while providing greater efficiencies within the healthcare system,” NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey said.

NCPA’s offered three main suggestions at the hearing. First off, they said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should use MTM to better medication adherence. Second, Congress should pass S. 776, the Medication Therapy Management Empowerment Act of 2015. And, finally, MTM models should be altered to incentivize good healthcare outcomes.

“The implementation of MTM by pharmacy benefit management (PBM) corporations is ripe for review,” Hoey said. “Rather than realize the demonstrated benefits of face-to-face MTM, some PBM corporations have taken a check-the-box approach and relegated the service to phone banks and mass mailings. NCPA strongly supports Medicare’s recent efforts to improve MTM services and will continue to work with Medicare officials and Congress toward that end.”