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Abstract
There are different elements of a third-party program that make it either more or less attractive to a pharmacy owner/manager who must decide whether or not to participate in it. Most of the attention is narrowly focused on only one aspect of such programs—the fee schedule. The purpose of this study is to determine the importance that pharmacy practitioners place on various factors in third-party programs.
A random sampling of nearly 500 community pharmacy owners was taken in order to determine their acceptance of various facets of third-party programs. In addition, they were asked the degree to which they weighed the different aspects as it related to their participation. These program elements were; amount of third-party-specific paperwork; timing of reimbursement (extemporaneously versus delay); claim rejection potential; acquisition cost determination; and amount of dispensing fee. Their opinions on specific reimbursement options were also elicited, including the present system.
Portions of this paper were presented at the Seventh International Pharmacy Economics/Third Party Conference, Honolulu, Hawaii.