Pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (part 1): Provider perspectives in 2007

Objectives: To collect and describe information from providers of medication therapy management (MTM) services regarding (1) implementation strategies used for providing MTM services to patients/clients; (2) specific measures, if any, used to quantify the costs and benefits of MTM; (3) how the value of MTM services was tracked during 2007; and (4) barriers to offering MTM services to patients/clients. Design: Descriptive, nonexperimental, cross-sectional study. Setting: United States during 2007. Participants: Of the 6,873 providers who presumably received an e-mail invitation to participate in the survey, 687 (10%) responded and were included for analysis. Interventions: Self-administered online survey. Main outcome measures: Implementation and monitoring of MTM. Results: 65% of survey respondents were involved in providing MTM services as defined in the consensus definition used. Of these, 47% reported that they were contracted with programs to provide MTM services. Of respondents, 35% indicated that these contracts provided a positive return on investment (ROI), 31% reported that they did not provide a positive ROI, and 34% reported that they did not know. Providers varied widely on how they implemented MTM service offerings and typically did not use specific measures to quantify the costs and benefits of MTM. In addition, they did not use systematic methods for assessing value from providing MTM services to their patients. Conclusion: This descriptive environmental scan can serve as a baseline measure and be used for future comparisons.