Cost-effectiveness analysis of pharmaceutical care in a medicare drug benefit program.

OBJECTIVES: Although there has recently been substantial interest in a Medicare drug benefit program, little attention has focused on ensuring improved access to medication monitoring for Medicare beneficiaries. Using a societal perspective, we evaluated the impact pharmacists could have on inappropriate prescribing, patient compliance, and medication-related morbidity and mortality within a Medicare drug benefits program.
METHODS: A cost-effectiveness analysis from a societal perspective was performed. A comprehensive MEDLINE search for relevant literature identified data sources and model parameters.
RESULTS: In the base case, a pharmaceutical care benefit in the elderly population would cost US dollars 2100 (year 2000 prices) per life-year saved, which is highly cost-effective. Reasonable changes in model parameters did not raise the cost-effectiveness ratio above US dollars 13000 per life-year saved.
CONCLUSION: Despite limitations in both the quantity and the specificity of data available, pharmaceutical care appears to be a highly cost-effective augmentation to a Medicare drug benefit program. This result is robust to model parameter changes. This model is conservative in that it does not include ongoing benefits from medication monitoring or increased elderly drug utilization and polypharmacy as the Medicare drug program is phased in.