Systems and Methods for Supplementing Patient and Provider Interactions to Increase Patient Adherence Specifically Using Combined Educational Coupons and Tailored Educational Documents and Services

Abstract

The present invention relates generally to a method of determining effectiveness of supplemental programs on patient adherence that includes: a) a computer apparatus assigning to each of a plurality of cohorts a different permutation of supplemental programs available for one or more prescribed substances, wherein each of the plurality of cohorts is a sub-set of a plurality of health care providers; b) receiving, on the computer apparatus, data relating to an electronic prescription of the one or more prescribed substances generated by a health care provider of the plurality of health care providers; and c) the computer, apparatus activating the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 . A method of determining effectiveness of supplemental programs on patient adherence, the method comprising:
 a) a computer apparatus assigning to each of a plurality of cohorts a different permutation of supplemental programs available for one or more prescribed substances, wherein each of the plurality of cohorts is a sub-set of a plurality of health care providers;   b) receiving, on the computer apparatus, data relating to an electronic prescription of the one or more prescribed substances generated by a health care provider of the plurality of health care providers; and   c) the computer apparatus activating the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 d) the computer apparatus receiving patient adherence data relating to electronic prescriptions for the one or more prescribed substances issued by the plurality of health care providers; and 
 e) parsing the patient adherence data into data groupings based on the plurality of cohorts. 
 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  further comprising:
 f) analyzing the data groupings to determine effectiveness of the different permutations of the supplemental programs on patient adherence. 
 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  further comprising:
 g) generating a patient adherence report based on results of step f). 
 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising, prior to step a), receiving, on the computer apparatus, provider cohort data for each of the plurality of health care providers, and defining the plurality of cohorts based on the received provider cohort data. 
     
     
         6 . The method of  claim 5  wherein said provider cohort data comprises a decile level for the one or more prescribed substances and/or medical specialty of the health care provider. 
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1  wherein step c) further comprises:
 c-1) presenting to the health care provider, in a display device, the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs for selection and activation; and 
 c-2) the computer apparatus activating the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs that are selected and activated by the health care provider. 
 
     
     
         8 . The method of  claim 1  wherein step a) further comprises defining the different permutations of the supplemental programs. 
     
     
         9 . The method of  claim 8  wherein step a) further comprises generating a program identifier for each of the different permutations of the supplemental programs, associating the program identifiers to the plurality of health care providers based on cohort status. 
     
     
         10 . The method of  claim 1  wherein at least one of the different permutations of the supplemental programs is a control permutation in which no supplemental programs are available for one or more prescribed substances. 
     
     
         11 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 d) the computer apparatus receiving patient adherence data relating to electronic prescriptions for the one or more prescribed substances issued by the plurality of health care providers, wherein said patient adherence data is based on data received from a payor and/or data received from a pharmacy system; and 
 e) parsing the patient adherence data into data groupings based on the plurality of cohorts. 
 
     
     
         12 . The method of  claim 1  wherein each of the plurality of cohorts comprises the same prescribed substance. 
     
     
         13 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising, prior to step a), generating a cohort identifier for each of the plurality of the cohorts, and associating a cohort identifier to each of the plurality of the health providers and storing said association in one or more databases. 
     
     
         14 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the one or more prescribe substances is a single prescribed substance. 
     
     
         15 . The method of  claim 1  wherein the one or more prescribed substances are selected based on treating a predetermined disease state. 
     
     
         16 . The method of  claim 1  wherein at least one of the different permutations of the supplemental programs comprises a coupon for the one or more prescribed substances, the method further comprising:
 d) the computer apparatus receiving patient adherence data relating to electronic prescriptions for the one or more prescribed substances issued by the plurality of health care providers, wherein said patient adherence data is based at least in part on rates of coupon redemption; and 
 e) parsing the patient adherence data into data groupings based on the plurality of cohorts. 
 
     
     
         17 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising:
 d) the computer apparatus retrieving, from the one or more databases, delivery modes that are available for a patient for whom the electronic prescription was generated; 
 e) the computer apparatus determining, from the one or more databases, delivery modes that are available for each of the programs; 
 f) comparing, with the computer apparatus, the delivery modes that are available for the patient and the delivery modes that are available for each of the associated programs to identify common delivery modes; and 
 g) for each eligible program, presenting to the health care provider, in the display device, a list of the common delivery modes for selection and acceptance. 
 
     
     
         18 . The method of  claim 17  wherein further comprising delivering content associated with the selected and accepted programs to the patient via delivery modes that are selected and accepted from the list of the common delivery modes by the health care provider. 
     
     
         19 . The method of  claim 18  further comprising:
 step i) tailoring the content to the delivery modes that are both selected and confirmed in step d). 
 
     
     
         20 . The method of  claim 1  wherein at least one of the different permutations of the supplemental programs comprises a prescription reminder service, the method further comprising:
 transmitting data relating to the electronic prescription and the patient to the prescription reminder service. 
 
     
     
         21 . The method of  claim 1  wherein one of activated eligible programs is a prescribed substance education service, and wherein step h) further comprises retrieving education content relating to the prescribed substance from the one or more databases, and transmitting said education content to the patient. 
     
     
         22 . The method of  claim 1  wherein one of activated eligible programs is a coupon service, and wherein step h) further comprises retrieving coupon data relating to the prescribed substance from the one or more databases, and integrating the coupon data into the electronic prescription. 
     
     
         23 . The method of  claim 1  wherein one of activated eligible programs is an appointment reminder service, and wherein step h) further comprises transmitting data relating to the patient and an appointment schedule to the appointment reminder service. 
     
     
         24 . A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions which, when executed on a processor, perform a method comprising:
 a) assigning to each of a plurality of cohorts a different permutation of supplemental programs available for one or more prescribed substances, wherein each of the plurality of cohorts is a sub-set of a plurality of health care providers;   b) receiving data relating to an electronic prescription of the one or more prescribed substances generated by a health care provider of the plurality of health care providers; and   c) activating the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs.   
     
     
         25 . A computer system for determining effectiveness of supplemental programs on patient adherence, the computer system comprising:
 a processor;   a storage device;   a network interface;   a display device;   an input device; and   instructions residing on the storage unit, which when executed by the processor, causes the processor to: a) assign to each of a plurality of cohorts a different permutation of supplemental programs available for one or more prescribed substances, wherein each of the plurality of cohorts is a sub-set of a plurality of health care providers; b) receive data relating to an electronic prescription of the one or more prescribed substances generated by a health care provider of the plurality of health care providers; and c) activate the supplemental programs associated with the cohort to which the health care provider belongs.