A recent study from Humana, "Screening for Health Literacy, Social Determinants, and Discrimination in Health Plans," provides insight on the experiences of patients in a national health plan with 2 structural determinants of health and how those interact with social determinants of health and patient demographics. The findings reveal how health plans can screen for health literacy, social determinants of health, and perceived health care discrimination.

Leveraging Clinical Opportunities to Drive Revenue   
Outcomes' Pacience Edwards discussed several specific clinical opportunities at the pharmacist's disposal. Expanding clinical interventions is a great way for independent pharmacies to begin increasing their revenue. Some examples of potential clinical interventions that pharmacies can utilize are meeting patient screening needs, disease-state specific controlling, polypharmacy, therapeutic interchange, opioid counseling, and member experience touchpoints.

Offering Resources to Implement Point-of-Care Testing  
The National Community Pharmacists Association and National Alliance of State Pharmacy Associations have developed a new guidance document to help community pharmacy teams with their point-of-care testing services. "A Guide to Implementing Point-of-Care Testing Services in Community Pharmacy" was developed to broadly help with setting up and providing these services, marketing them in their communities, and navigating reimbursement.. 

Rare Disease Day and a Focus on Quality

Medication use quality improvement – which depends significantly on standardization – is incredibly challenging for rare disease due to the number of conditions and the great variation in disease presentation, progression and treatment..

Despite these obstacles, PQA is eager to provide a forum to discuss quality issues in rare disease medication use and an opportunity to elevate the needs of rare disease patients and those who care for them.

We are in the early stages of planning an event, PQA Convenes: Quality Medication Use in Rare Disease, which will bring our members and the rare disease community together to explore quality in medication use. This one-day event will take place on Thursday, November 7, 2024, in Arlington, Va., prior to the PQA Leadership Summit.

We look forward to sharing more about this event in the coming months. If you have questions or would like to be involved, email us at [email protected].

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