Role of Pharmacists in the Medical Field
Years ago, pharmacists only required a 4-year Bachelor degree. Today, pharmacists require a minimum of 6 years while most schools are moving towards 8 years, 4-year undergrad degree plus another 4-year graduate program degree. Pharmacists were looked at as pill dispensers or druggist as the older crowd would call them. When people hear the word pharmacist, the immediately think of Rite-Aid or CVS as in, retail pharmacists. Today, the role of a pharmacist has expanded in many different fields that most people would not have thought about.
Many options exist today for pharmacists which could include the traditional retail pharmacist, clinical, long term care, nuclear, home infusion, medication therapy management, compounding, or managed care to name a few. Pharmacists play a critical role in the medical field today, working along with other practitioners.
Being a pharmacist, I’ve noticed that about 50% of the population would consider a pharmacist a vital part of the healthcare team. Most people don’t realize that pharmacists go to school for 4 years to study pharmacology, which is the study of drugs and how they work in the body and when taken with other drugs. Most people don’t realize that physicians, “doctors”, only take 1 to 2 semesters of pharmacology. The majority of prescribing medications comes from physicians. Why would they only be required to take 1 to 2 semesters of pharmacology when the majority of the prescribing is coming from them? That is a great question that I don’t have an answer to.
It’s important for pharmacists to review medications, patient’s labs, and history. We aren’t stepping on the toes of physicians, rather, we are protecting the patients to ensure their safety with medications.
I work for an insurance company which reviews medications to assess the appropriateness of drug regimens based on patient specific disease states. When I first started, I didn’t realize how large of a gap there was in healthcare. Most people don’t realize how formularies work, let alone their own insurance. Most standard insurance plans place patients on a specific formulary. Formularies are designed to save costs for patient and the health plan. Physicians take patients that have all different types of formularies. You can imagine, doctors don’t know all of the formularies for all of the different types of insurances that are offered. They just want to prescribe a certain drug for xyz reason (we don’t get into the reasons for the sake of time). When the patient takes their prescription to pick up at the pharmacy, sometimes the pharmacy will tell the patient that their insurance doesn’t cover that medication.
When a medication isn’t covered, the patient/doctor can submit a prior authorization request and the doctor’s office will submit paperwork stating why their patient needs to be on that certain drug. The majority of the time, if the medication isn’t on the patient’s formulary, they will have to be prescribed a similar drug that is on the formulary. Imagine how long this whole process takes to complete just because physicians aren’t aware of patient’s formulary? You can probably guess a whole lot of time!
This is just one example of how the healthcare system needs to advance. Imagine if they’re was a practice that only accepted a certain type of insurance and then the physicians can be properly trained on which medication is on what formulary and thus decreasing the cost of healthcare and improving patient satisfaction and outcomes.
By the way, pharmacists are the ones who review prior authorization requests at insurance companies to ensure appropriateness, effectiveness, and safety as well as formulary management. We work with providers to make sure the patient gets the coverage they need for their specific condition. This back and forth between pharmacists and physicians is just one example of how pharmacists are more than just pill pushers as once thought to be.
