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Quality Assurance

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What is Quality Assurance?

This is a sign of our dedication to providing quality healthcare. Quality assurance includes measures and systems to reduce medication errors and adverse drug interactions, and improve medication use.

Examples of quality assurance processes in relation to Medicare Part D may include the following:

Concurrent Drug Utilization Review

This occurs when a prescription is being filled at the pharmacy. Your prescriptions are reviewed for safety issues that may address the following:

  • Possible medication errors
  • Drug dosage and therapy duration errors
  • Duplicate drugs that are unnecessary because you are taking another to treat the same medical condition
  • Drug allergies
  • Possible harmful interactions between the drugs you are taking
  • Drugs that are not appropriate for your age or gender

Retrospective Drug Utilization Review

This occurs after a prescription is filled. This process reviews members' drug histories and identifies opportunities to improve the quality of care by identifying patterns of inappropriate or medically unnecessary therapy.

What Is Drug Utilization Management?

Drug utilization management programs are designed to improve quality and reduce costs when medically appropriate. The program includes systems to assist in preventing overuse and underuse of prescribed medications.

Examples of utilization management in relation to Medicare Part D may include the following:

Prior Authorizations

We require you to get prior authorization for certain drugs. (You may need prior authorization for drugs that are on the formulary or drugs that are not on the formulary and were approved for the coverage through our exceptions process.) This means you will need to get approval from Scott and White Health Plan before you fill your prescriptions. If you do not get approval, Scott and White Health Plan may not cover the drug.

Quantity Limits

For certain drugs, there are limits to the amount of the drug that we will cover. For example, we provide up to a certain number of tablets per prescription for a certain drug.

Step Therapy

In some cases, we require you to first try certain drugs to treat your medical condition before we will cover another drug for that condition. For example, if Drug A and Drug B both treat your medical condition, Scott & White Health Plan may not cover Drug B unless you try Drug A first. If Drug A does not work for you, Scott & White Health Plan will then cover Drug B.

Use of Generic Drugs

We cover both name brand and generic drugs. A generic drug has the same active ingredient as the name brand drug. Generic drugs usually cost less than name brand drugs and are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

What Is the Medication Therapy Management (MTM) Program?

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