Medication Synchronization: 3 Important Points to Keep in Mind

Although only patients themselves can take full responsibility for ensuring that they take their medications on-time every day, pharmacists play an important role in ensuring medication adherence. Patient forgetfulness, transportation issues, and other hurdles to getting medications refilled on time can all contribute to adherence issues, but medication synchronization can help.

Read on to find out three things that pharmacists need to know about this essential process.

1. Modern Technology Makes Medication Synchronization Easy

Synchronizing patients’ medications so they can pick them all up at the same time used to be much more difficult when pharmacists had to calculate and keep track of everything by hand. Today, pharmacists can purchase a pharmacy inventory management system and combine it with other software programs and automated devices to take all the work out of medication synchronization. Modern pharmacies can even automate things like refill reminders.

There is a second benefit to automating the processes behind medication synchronization. Automating pharmacy services gives pharmacists more time to focus on one-on-one discussions with patients. This gives pharmacists the chance to discuss strategies for improving adherence and focus more on customer service, which helps both patients and the pharmacy’s bottom line.

2. Patients May Have Trouble Covering Costs

The inability to pay is one of the largest barriers to the more widespread adoption of medication synchronization practices. Unfortunately, the partial refills required to align patients’ medications aren’t always covered by insurance. Recent changes to Medicare Part D have required sponsors to offer prorated copayments, which has made life easier for many patients struggling to cover the costs of medication synchronization, but only the copayments for those medications covered under Part D can be prorated.

Thankfully, some states have stepped up to pass legislation to facilitate medication synchronization. In these states, private health insurers are required to cover synchronization services at least once per year and to prorate copayments. As more states adopt these laws, patients stand to benefit from fewer financial and logistical burdens and pharmacists will no longer be penalized for coordinating patients’ medications for improved adherence.

3. Pharmacists Will Also Benefit from Synchronization

It’s fairly obvious how patients stand to gain from medication synchronization. They will be able to pick up all of their medications at once instead of making repeated trips to the pharmacy, which eliminates a potential barrier to medication adherence, and will have an easier time keeping track of their pills. As more states adopt synchronization-friendly laws, it’s becoming clear this practice also benefits pharmacists.

Independent pharmacies that adopt medication synchronization systems have reported increases in sales volumes. Patients are more likely to pick up 100% of their prescriptions, which means pharmacists will get paid for all of them. Plus, automating as many of the tasks associated with synchronization as possible gives pharmacy employees more time to focus on customer service, which helps them increase their customer bases and make more sales.

The Bottom Line

Almost 30 major pharmacy chains have already adopted medication synchronization policies and, now, independent pharmacies are beginning to follow suit. It’s an easy, cost-efficient way to improve patients’ medication adherence, drive more sales, and improve any pharmacy’s bottom line. When choosing pharmacy automation systems to facilitate medication synchronization, make sure to work with software developers and hardware manufacturers that specialize exclusively in pharmacy services. Call a reputable supplier to discuss concerns and come up with a plan for the easy implementation of a new synchronization system.