AMCP: The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy

Robert W. Dubois, MD, PhD, the chief science officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council discusses the initial expectations of implementing accountable care organizations (ACOs) and how those expectations have evolved over time.

In a presentation entitled "Accountable Care Organizations: 2013 and Beyond," 4 managed care experts shared their insights and thoughts on the ongoing paradigm shift in managed care towards accountable care organizations, elaborating on current trends, unmet needs, and the future direction of the managed care landscape.

Highlights from the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's 2012 Educational Conference, which took place on October 3-5, 2012, in Cincinnati, Ohio, are available in a newsletter published by The American Journal of Managed Care. Topics discussed include the ways in which heterogeneity shapes therapeutic decisions, patient outcomes, and coverage policies; assessment of the evidence for new medications; and phone-based medication therapy management services.

In this video, Aaron McKethan, PhD, Vice President, Strategy and Business Development, RxAnte, talks about new strategies to improve patient medication adherence.

There exists a need for a standard of care to ensure that each patient's medications are appropriate, effective, safe, and able to be taken as intended. Medication therapy management (MTM) is a professional service that can help meet this need. Although the practice of providing comprehensive MTM services by phone has many positive attributes, there are many challenges associated with this type of intervention.

Brian Sweet, RPh, MBA, Executive Director, Health Care Alliances, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, talks about the progress that has been made to-date in integrating clinical data elements with administrative claims data.

Medication assessments directly impact the way a drug is covered, and drugs with better quality data with a higher level of certainty are more favorably covered. Accurately assessing the evidence for new medications will help payers summarize a drug's benefit-to-risk ratio.

In this video, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, Senior Clinical Consultant, Emerging Therapeutics Express Scripts, Inc, talks about the impact that biosimilar medications could potentially have on the specialty pharmacy market.

Edith Rosato, RPh, IOM, the chief executive officer of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, recently shared the organization's Top 5 strategic priorities for the coming year.

In this video, Feng Zeng, PhD, Senior Health Economist, MedImpact, discusses how the implementation of copayment reduction in the gap in 2011 influenced adherence measures for oral diabetes medications.

The role of the pharmacist in the care of patients with cancer is evolving. Pharmacists can help optimize treatment outcomes for each patient through use of patient-specific and disease-specific strategies.

In this video, David Nau, PhD, talks about data challenges as they relate to medication adherence measures. "One data challenge that Medicare plans face is getting all of the prescription field data from the pharmacist," says Dr. Nau.

Managed care pharmacists can help optimize outcomes in patients with age-related eye disease by addressing concerns regarding affordability of therapy, instructing patients on proper eye drop instillation, and evaluating the effects of different therapies. Ophthalmologists and optometrists should take part in managed care formulary discussions to help achieve optimal patient care.

In this video, Mark Zitter, MBA, talks about the implications of Co-Pay Offset Programs for managed care. "Co-pay programs affect managed care very differently depending on the nature of the program," says Zitter. "These programs are tremendously varied."

During a preconference session at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 2012 Educational Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio, industry experts met to discuss the ways in which heterogeneity shapes therapeutic decisions, patient outcomes, and coverage policies.

The Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy's (AMCP) 2012 Educational Conference will take place in Cincinnati, OH, October 3-5 at the Duke Energy Convention Center.

In this video, Beckie Fenrick, PharmD, MDA, Senior Director, Medical Operations, Care Models and Affordability Solutions, Florida Blue, speaks about oncoloytic therapies. In particular, Fenrick talks about new strategies for managing oncolytic therapies without sacrificing outcomes.

In this video, Debbie Stern, RPh, Vice President, Rxperts Inc, speaks about the trends in specialty pharmacy management and what lies on the horizon.

According to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the increase in the shortage of critical drugs could potentially become a major public health emergency.

Debbie Stern, RPh; Becki Fenrick, PharmD, MBA; and Michael Fine, MD, presented on specialty pharmacy management trends on Friday.

Shelly Spiro, RPh, FASCP, Director of the Pharmacy e-Health Information Technology Collaborative, provided an overview of pharmacy Health Information Technology (HIT) during her presentation The Roadmap for Pharmacy HIT Integration on Friday.

In this video, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, Senior Clinical Consultant, Emerging Therapeutics Express Scripts, Inc, speaks about specialty therapy classes that have a lot of activity in the pharmaceutical pipeline.

In this video, Mark Zitter, MBA, CEO of the Zitter Group, speaks about how oncology pathways are affecting drug use.

The specialty market has experienced a significant rate of growth as well as increased costs over the past few years thanks to a broader use of specialty medications to treat common and rare diseases.

One of the more popular sessions at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 24th Annual Meeting on Thursday featured Paul Frostin, PhD, Director, Health Research and Education Program, Employee Benefit Research Institute, on the topic of health insurance exchanges.

In this video, David Nau, PhD, RPh, CPHQ, Senior Director, Quality Strategies Pharmacy Quality Alliance, Inc, discusses quality improvement models.

Many patients with type 2 diabetes could avoid the long-term complications of their disease by ensuring consistent and proper glycemic control. With insulin use decreasing in recent years and the use of newer agents increasing, treatment regiments have changed drastically. Newer options may affect rates of glycemic control but may also be adding to the complexity of clinical decision making, as well as the management of benefits for plans and payers.

Also on the agenda for day one at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) 24th Annual Meeting in San Francisco was a satellite symposium that focused on analyzing and applying evidence to improve the cost/benefit and risk/benefit outcomes in multiple sclerosis. One of the overarching themes throughout the 5 presentations that comprised the program was medication adherence.

Wednesday morning at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 24th Annual Meeting featured a satellite symposium that focused on the evolving role of managed care and oncology pharmacy management. The presentations by distinguished faculty reviewed current evidence-based data to enable decision making based on indicators of treatment outcomes for multiple myeloma; demonstrated the use of comparative effectiveness research (CER) as a decision support tool; and evaluated innovative pharmacy benefit models and specialty management services.

Keynote session discussed healthcare reform and implications for managed care pharmacy.