4 Ways eCare Plans Benefit Your Pharmacy
Posted on Feb 21, 2024
Today, pharmacies are responsible for much more than filling prescriptions. By continuing to expand their role on a patient’s health care team, pharmacists also provide a variety of education and support services. This includes administering vaccines and point-of-care testing, performing health screenings, providing in-depth counseling on medications and more. By offering these additional services, pharmacies can positively impact treatment adherence, patient safety and health outcomes.
eCare plans have been used in the medical field for years and are also an effective way for pharmacies to document their patient interactions and potentially get paid for the clinical services they’re providing. To get started, pharmacies must register with the CPESN Network. From there, they can create custom clinical assessments and eCare plans, communicate with other members of the patient’s care team and report the additional services they’re providing – right from their BestRx software. Not only do eCare plans promote better collaboration across a care team and help patients, but they can benefit your pharmacy as well. By using eCare plans you can:
Improve your workflow.
eCare plans require pharmacy staff to thoroughly document their patient interactions in a consistent manner. In addition to keeping patient records up to date, this can streamline workflows and communication across your pharmacy as well. In fact, many pharmacies save countless hours simply by not having to track down answers. Instead, they can refer to an eCare plan to quickly determine what actions were taken and by whom.
Share your impact.
eCare plans provide you with an easy, efficient way to share vital information with other healthcare providers. Not only does this support better continuity of care, but it provides tangible evidence of how your pharmacy helps its patients achieve better health. Plus, through our partnership with the CPESN Network, BestRx pharmacies can share eCare plans with other providers and payers electronically, eliminating manual steps in the process.
Produce better health outcomes for patients.
To develop an eCare plan, pharmacies need to have in-depth discussions with their patients. These discussions are designed to help identify any health concerns, assess the patient’s current health status (through observation and evaluations), and establish goals and interventions. This detailed information can then be used to provide everyone involved with a more complete picture of the patient’s health, treatment plan and progress. That way, the pharmacy and other healthcare providers can address any issues and keep patients on track.
Provide new revenue opportunities.
Most pharmacies are already providing a variety of support services that are eligible for reimbursement. However, without documenting them in eCare plans they may not be getting paid for them. Often, the biggest roadblocks pharmacies face is remembering all the required components of an eCare plan and the time it takes to create one. That’s why BestRx has easy-to-use eCare templates to streamline the process. These templates contain prepopulated information for specific encounter types and guide pharmacies through the remaining documentation steps. That way, pharmacies can quickly create thorough eCare plans within their existing workflows. When finished, eCare plans are securely stored in the system, so pharmacies can refer back to them or share them electronically with other health care providers and payers when needed. Learn more information about our eCare templates here.
The bottom line? If you’re providing patient education and support services, make sure you’re documenting them and getting reimbursed whenever possible. Otherwise, you’re just leaving money on the table. To learn more about BestRx and its robust features, request a free demo.