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WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Health is celebrating the one-year anniversary of its ScriptSync medication synchronization program.
The pharmacy service that enables patients who regularly take multiple medications to pick up eligible maintenance prescriptions in a monthly visit to a CVS Pharmacy store.
More than a million customers have been enrolled in ScriptSync, and preliminary results demonstrate that the service improves medication adherence by between 5% and 10%, on average, according to the company.
“We are focused on helping patients save time while making it easier for them to take all of their medications as prescribed,” comments Dr. Troyen Brennan, executive vice president and chief medical officer of CVS Health.
“With ScriptSync we can remove some of the biggest barriers to medication adherence, such as remembering to refill prescriptions and making multiple pharmacy trips each month,” Brennan explains. “By aligning a patient’s prescription pickup schedule, we can improve convenience and drive adherence, and based on the high enrollment in ScriptSync, it is clear that our patients value this service.”
ScriptSync is now also available at CVS Caremark Mail Service Pharmacy, making CVS Health the first national pharmacy provider to offer this type of service in retail and mail pharmacy channels.
“At CVS Health, our goal is to deliver solutions that help improve health and lower costs for our customers, clients and members,” states Jonathan Roberts, executive vice president of CVS Health and president of CVS Caremark, the pharmacy benefits management division (PBM) of CVS Health.
“Improving medication adherence is a major priority for our PBM clients and a seemingly small enhancement like aligning prescriptions for delivery or once monthly pickup can make a tremendous difference for patients in convenience and outcomes.”
In launching the service, CVS cited research by the CVS Health Research Institute and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine finding that as the complexity of patients’ medication regimens increases, adherence suffers. Patients with multiple medications who did not consolidate their medication refills were found to have significantly lower adherence rates than patients who consolidated their refills.
Researchers concluded that helping patients simplify, synchronize and organize their pharmacy care could improve adherence.
CVS Pharmacy customers with multiple maintenance medications can sign up for ScriptSync and work with their pharmacy team to identify which prescriptions to include and select a pickup date. And customers with multiple maintenance prescriptions can sign up for ScriptSync and work with their pharmacist to align prescription fills and choose an optimal pickup date.
Once aligned, the prescriptions are refilled within hours. And prior to the pickup date, patients can receive a call or text message notifying them that their refill is available for pickup. After enrollment, participants or their caregivers can manage ScriptSync prescriptions online at cvs.com/ScriptSync.
The company is now making the system available via the CVS Pharmacy mobile app. There, patients can add or remove prescriptions and check the status of an order, as well as modify their ScriptSync pickup date.
