CPF FUNDED GRANT DETAILS

The Pharmacist Services Technical Advisory Coalition (PSTAC) proposes a comprehensive, multifaceted educational campaign for pharmacists and health care payers concerning the recently adopted Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes for medication therapy management services (MTMS) provided by pharmacists. These codes provide a critical, nationally recognized standard for documentation and billing for pharmacists patient care services, further facilitating the transformational changes now occurring in pharmacists practices that help promote effective, high quality medication use and outcomes. The campaign would include: 1 live educational programming for national meetings of pharmacists and payer groups in the U.S.-- 2 Web-based educational materials-- 3 print materials for publication in national journals-- and 4 development of workflow resources and materials to help pharmacists and pharmacy practice managers integrate CPT codes and coding procedures into their various practice environments and systems. In addition, the campaign would include a research project that would survey pharmacists and payers regarding the current prevalence and use of the CPT codes for MTMS, which would serve as a reference for determining the nature and extent of MTMS in the current health care system. Although the educational campaign would be across all settings in which pharmacists practice, community pharmacists stand to benefit most from this project for several reasons: 1 community pharmacists are likely to have the least experience with CPT codes-- 2 community pharmacists face the most significant economic and practice model changes to integrate the use of the codes into their practice-- 3 with threats such as declining margins and the change to AMP based reimbursement, the CTP codes for MTM services provision present community pharmacists with a new revenue stream to maintain their practice viability. The seven national pharmacy organizations comprising PSTAC believe that this campaign is essential to the advancement of quality patient care related to the use of medications and vital to the successful transition of pharmacy, and specifically community pharmacy, into a patient-focused health profession. A more detailed description of the campaign is available in the form of an official grant request.