The data included medical claims (dates of service, diagnoses received, procedures performed, places of service and payment amounts), pharmacy claims (fill dates, national drug codes [NDCs] and payment amounts), and eligibility information (patient demographics, enrolment history and wage information) for all beneficiaries for the period January 1999 March 2012.
These records included the names of the prescribed antihypertensive drug(s), dosage, the quantity dispensed at each pharmacy fill and the dates of prescription fills.
These data included insurance coverage, demographic information, diagnosis codes, procedure codes, dates of service and, outpatient pharmacy data including fill dates and drug-days supplied.
All values were obtained from the index MDS, index hemoglobin, serum creatinine or the pharmacy database (with fill dates 30 days prior to 90 days after the index hemoglobin).
Pharmacy claims data include drug name, dosage form, drug strength, fill date, days of supply, financial information, and de-identified patient and prescriber codes, allowing for longitudinal tracking of medication refill patterns and changes in medications.
Outpatient prescription data were collected from the VHA's Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM Servicess and consisted of records of filled prescriptions (which included the fill date, days' supply, and schedule).
Pharmacy fill profiles provided data for estimating adherence to therapy.
"Index agent" was defined as the first agent filled; "index date" was defined as the fill date.
OBJECTIVES: The burden of visiting pharmacies to fill medications is a central contributor to nonadherence to maintenance medications.Recently, pharmacies have begun offering services that align prescription fill dates to allow patients to pick up all medications on a single visit.
MPR was defined as the proportion of follow-up days with the index therapy available based on fill dates and day supply given on the pharmacy claims.
Pharmacy claims fields included drug brand names, national drug code (NDC) numbers, fill dates, and days supply.
