Green Shield Canada is rolling out a new pharmacy rating system in October 2017.
The insurer’s program will measure individual pharmacies’ performance and provide feedback to help them gain insight into what they’re already doing well and areas where there’s room for improvement, according to a news release.
Green Shield will supply all pharmacies across the country with scorecards showing patient impact based on the insurer’s claims data, highlighting key information around patient adherence and safety and disease management. The scorecards, which will be available monthly, will rate the pharmacy’s performance on a set of eight measures.
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The purpose of the new program, according to Green Shield, is to boost accountability in Canada’s health-care system and ensure patients are getting the best possible quality of care. “Ultimately, this translates into better value for the dollars that you invest in your plan members’ health.”
The insurer will send the first monthly scorecards to pharmacies in October 2017, at which time they’ll also have access to additional performance information through an interactive website. In 2018, plan members will have access to the pharmacy performance information through an online search tool.
Eventually, Green Shield intends to tie pharmacy reimbursement to the performance scores. “This will ensure that pharmacies providing higher quality of care are rewarded for their efforts, while pharmacies with suboptimal care may see their reimbursement diminished,” said the news release, which noted the third phase is still in early development through consultation and collaboration with the pharmacy community.
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