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What is the Need for Drug Utilization Review?

Posted On : Sep-05-2017 | seen (550) times | Article Word Count : 513 |

“Drug Utilization Review” is the common term you must have come across if you are working in the healthcare industry. Also known as “medication utilization reviews” or “medication review,” DUR is a structured evaluation that monitors the activities of physicians, patients, pharmacists, and the operation of the health care system.
“Drug Utilization Review” is the common term you must have come across if you are working in the healthcare industry. Also known as “medication utilization reviews” or “medication review,” DUR is a structured evaluation that monitors the activities of physicians, patients, pharmacists, and the operation of the health care system.

Drug Utilization Review – Definition

Drug Utilization Review is an authorized and structured evaluation process of monitoring the prescription and dispensing of medication. Performing a drug utilization review helps you to ensure that the drugs are properly prescribed and dispensed among healthcare providers and patients to achieve positive outcomes and enjoy better health.

The three different phases of drug utilization review are,

- Prospective DUR
- Concurrent DUR
- Retrospective DUR

Prospective DUR

Prospective DUR is performed on a regular basis every day by assessing the medication dosage prescribed for the patients while reviewing patient information for possible drug interactions or duplicate therapy. This process relies on computerized algorithms to conduct essential checks such as drug interactions, duplications or contraindications with the patient’s disease state or condition.

Issues Addressed:

- Clinical misuse
- Drug-disease contradiction
- Modification in drug dosage
- Inappropriate duration of drug treatment and more.

Concurrent DUR

This review is performed during the treatment process to find out any potential problems and arbitrate in areas such as drug-drug interactions, duplicate therapy, over or underutilization and excessive or insufficient dosing.

Issues Commonly Addressed

- Drug-disease interactions
- Drug-drug interactions
- Drug dosage modifications
- Drug-patient precautions (age, gender, pregnancy, etc.)
- Over and under-utilization
- Therapeutic Interchange

Retrospective DUR

This is the final phase of drug utilization review and is performed after the patient has received the medication. Retrospective DUR is specially done to detect patterns in prescribing and administering medicines for better results.

Issues Addressed:

- Appropriate medication use
- Clinical abuse
- Wrong duration pattern of the treatment
- Incorrect drug usage
- Over and underutilization of drugs and more.

Different Stages of Drug Utilization Review - ANS Solutions

At ANS Solutions, drug utilization review is performed in three stages,

- PharmReview
- PharmIntervention
- PharmCompliance

PharmReview

A thorough evaluation of the prescription data, medical history and the course of treatment of an injured worker is done by highly credentialed legal nurse experts. This stage makes sure that clinically appropriate and injury-specific pharmacy regime is being followed in the treatment of injured worker.

PharmIntervention

Based on the review, actionable and clinically appropriate medication recommendations are made face-to-face to the treating physician.

PharmCompliance

PharmCompliance ensures that the physician and patient adhere to the newly prescribed treatment plan.

ANS Solutions also specialize in other workers’ compensation cost containment services such as legal nurse consulting, medical cost projection and reducing Medicare set aside & part D exposure.

Article Source : http://www.articleseen.com/Article_What is the Need for Drug Utilization Review?_320828.aspx

Author Resource :
The author of this article is an experienced legal nurse consultant with over a decade of experience in the industry. In this article, he writes in detail about drug utilization review and its benefits. Visit http://ans-solutions.com for more information.

Keywords : medication review, drug utilization review, legal nurse consultant,

Category : Business : Business

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