PharmaSmart Smart Card meets NCPDP standard

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Blood pressure screening kiosk maker PharmaSmart International Inc. said its Smart Card product now conforms to the Billing Unit Standard (BUS) of the National Council for Prescription Drug Programs (NCPDP).

PharmaSmart said Wednesday that its Smart Card also has been listed in national drug databases, including Medi-Span, Redbook, Gold Standard and Center.

The action enables uniform listing of the product’s billing unit among the national drug databases to facilitate consistent and accurate billing and reimbursement, according to the company.

PharmaSmart’s personal blood pressure Smart Card confidentially stores and channels a patient’s biometric readings from its kiosk technology to pharmacy systems and physician electronic medial records (EMRs).

“We are pleased to have our SmartCard conform with NCPDP’s Billing Unit Standard to ensure accurate billing and reimbursement, and also have our core patient care tool listed in national drug and device compendia. This allows us to more easily connect providers, health plans, and pharmacists in the collaborative support of hypertension patients,” stated Josh Sarkis, senior vice president of strategic business development at PharmaSmart.

“The PharmaSmart Smart Card can now be e-prescribed and listed in national formularies. This enables improved medication therapy targeting blood pressure control, not just adherence, and a clinical reimbursement model that is integrated into standard pharmacy workflow,” Sarkis explained.

PharmaSmart said it’s an active participant in NCPDP Work Group 10 professional Pharmacy Services (WG10) to help develop support for the inclusion of pharmacy-sourced patient biometrics in medication therapy management communication and documentation standards and electronic health records (EHRs).

“Because our program is clinically validated and supported by published science, PharmaSmart offers our retail clients a scalable chronic disease management solution,” commented Ashton Maaraba, PharmaSmart chief operations officer and general manager. “In today’s health care environment, retail pharmacy will need to demonstrate that they can deliver improved outcomes through validated metrics. PharmaSmart is the first retail program to deliver on this challenge, and our progress with payer organizations open up new ROI for retailers looking to innovate their pharmacy services offering.”

On Wednesday, PharmaSmart also announced the hiring of Laura Topor, an NCPDP veteran with strong pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), health plan and retail pharmacy experience, to spearhead the development of its managed care/payer relations programs.

“Laura is well-known, well-connected, and she understands payer-retailer partnerships and logistics,” Maaraba stated, “We are excited to have Laura on board.”