Personal Voice and other Medication Adherence "Scams"

I subscribe to a number of Google Alerts regarding medication non/ adherence /compliance. For the most part they are pretty spot on regarding articles with my chosen keywords, new research, blog posts etc... At least once a day is a link to a faux blog that simply lists keywords with advertising and links to other spam sites.

Once such site came up today, but also revealed some useful information - ie. NCPIE is promoting October as Talk About Prescriptions Month (more on this in another post) but they have a broken link to the site.



The text isn't well written, but they do promote the importance of medication adherence and the role of the caregiver. It mentions a service called Personal Voice with a link to the website Family Focus Working Caregivers that has broken links and some healthcare information. Overall a horribly designed site, but offers the Personal Voice service which will call your loved ones for you in case you do not have the time to make sure they are taking their medications.



I called the number provided to get an information package. The voicemail thanked me for calling and asked me to dial the extension I wanted. I dialed "0" and got a voicemail that simply stated "Personal Voice". I did a Google Search for "Personal Voice Inc." and here is what I got:



At first I thought it was just a problem with them managing their online reputation - since the first four results are negative. I then read the posts and they all describe the service as a scam. They deduct money from one's checking account monthly, yet do not provide a service. They are tied to another company which is a debit-for-credit-card scam as well.

This just makes me mad. A company using medication non-adherence rates to scare caregivers into signing up for a service that is simply a scam to make money. Luckily they are now being investigated by the FBI. I have encountered a number of email phishing scams this year, and other online attempts to get information, but this is the first I have seen involving medication non-adherence.

Caregivers out there, be careful with the services you sign up for. Make sure they are legitimate and will provide a beneficial service for your loved ones. Check with the better business bureau and do a Google Search to check the company's reputation.

I have not included any links from this post on purpose.

Adheris Study Finds First 30 Days on Antidepressants Critical for Medication Adherence

I had a call a few months back where I was pitching Intelecare's Services. The prospect asked "who are your competitors". I gave the answer, "well, no one". I know it is not the proper VC answer, however, at the time (March) there wasn't anyone in our space doing what we do.

No one has a robust, web-based proprietary medical messaging platform that sends patient and caregiver created reminders via email, text and voice messaging. No one offers our hosted and enterprise solutions to industry. No one has 3.2M users and sends out 4M reminders daily. No one has a pro bono program that gives away their technology. No one is developing the next generation in Adherence 2.0 applications like we are.

Since that call, a handful of competitors have emerged offering similar products. In fact, one such competitor even used the same phrasing we have used on our website for two years to describe the services they offer and the industries they serve.

Competitors aside, Intelecare is still the gold standard - no matter how many other companies come into the space.

Even though our competitors charge for their reminders, we still offer a free service to patients and caregivers to ensure that they are helped with the #1 cause of medical non-adherence, forgetfulness. We still integrate our reminder platform into any existing web portal - both as an out of the box hosted solution and as a fully customized enterprise solution. We still offer our hosted email reminder platform pro-bono to non-profits that specialize in chronic disease states.

That being said, I found a press release from Adheris today announcing a study which results "showed that patients new to antidepressant treatment and those who had restarted therapy after a lapse of 6 or more months were twice as likely to discontinue therapy in the first 30 days of treatment versus patients previously dispensed an antidepressant."

This is significant because the first 30 days of therapy are integral to a patient continuing their therapy. "The practical implications of this study are that while all patients lapsed at an alarming rate over time, increased patient follow-up and education within the first 30 days of therapy in newly treated and lapsed patients restarting therapy are critical to help improve adherence and patient outcomes."

Adheris is a fantastic company that has been in the space for over 9 years. They are focused on increasing patient adherence and education at the pharmacy level. Several times I have been asked to compare our services to theirs - however it is apples and oranges. We are both trying to get to the same goal - increasing patient medication adherence - we just have two distinct ways of doing it.

Medication non-adherence costs the US $300 BILLION annually in unnecessary health care costs and lost revenue. 1 in 2 patients does not take their medications as directed with 84% of them citing forgetfulness as the reason.

I think this market is big enough for a few players with different ideas of how to end this pandemic. It not only takes reminders, but education and lower drug costs to help eradicate the problem which affects us all in one way or another.

Intelecare In Shape Magazine

Sorry for the shameless promotion of Intelecare.

For those of you who cannot read the copy: Intelecare; For $5 a month you can receive unlimited text message, email, or voice mail reminders for prescriptions and appointments. We still offer a free service as well.

Here is the link to Shape magazine online.

Cheers!

Kevin Aniskovich's DM Colloquium Presentation

As Director of Corporate Development for Intelecare, I sometimes blog about what we are doing as a company and how we are helping the various stakeholders in healthcare by enabling patient medical adherence. I would be remiss not to mention our CEO's (Kevin Aniskovich) presentation at the DM Colloquium last month.

The title: Effectively Increasing Patient Adherence as a 360 Degree Approach. He also introduced the term Adherence 2.0 (in line with Health 2.0) and released the preliminary findings of a survey on the utilization of employee wellness programs.

Hope you enjoy!

A Case of Medication Non-adherence

Is this an acceptable case of medication non-adherence or just my own lack of planning?  Of course there is no acceptable reason for medication adherence - if you want to get better, you take your medications.  Plain and simple.  

I lived through the agonizing pain of flushing with 1000 mg of Niaspan, including the spaciness, and insomnia due to the nightmares of my flesh burning.  The cost of switching to a HSA with three medications for me, two for my wife and two for my son - luckily back to a regular payor.  And created Intelecare reminders to help me remember to take my medications (one trick I like is to keep some meds at work, just in case).

So here is my case:  My wife went into labor with our second son two weeks early, at 2 am on a Saturday night.  She woke me at 4 am and told me that we had to leave for the hospital immediately.  I quickly packed a toilet kit for us both (including my meds but not hers) and some clothes, then went to the hospital; she gave birth at 5:45 am.  Our medication schedules were not top of mind.  Luckily for her, the nurses knew she was on medication, and the attending physician prescribed her a two day supply.

Once we settled into our room at 8 am or so, I did not unpack our bags.  We napped until 1:30 pm and then started accepting visitors.  I went home at 9 pm or so with our 1st son,  and realized I left all my meds at the hospital.  Thus, I ended the day non-adherent to my two morning, and two nighttime medications.  

The next day was a rush of our nanny starting, buying items for the baby (car seat, diapers, new bottles, etc...), and fielding calls.  I made it to the hospital around 1:30 for lunch, but the bag I packed for Courtenay still was not open.  I had more errands to run, then returned around 7 for dinner.  I finally got my medications, and took that nights does when I went to bed.

The next morning (Tuesday), I only had two more Tricor, so I called in a refill, but was unable to pick it up until yesterday (8 days late).  Luckily I had my extra stash in my office.

Now these medications I take are for asymptomatic conditions - high cholesterol, and high triglycerides - but what if they were for asthma, diabetes, or high blood pressure and I suffered an attack?  

Life sometimes gets in the way of staying adherent to your medication schedule.  I usually operate at 100% adherent to my daily schedule - whether the morning disbursement is at 7:30 am when I brush my teeth or 9 am when I get into the office.  My test results were too positive not to continue taking my meds.  These drugs lowered all of my levels, and put me in a safe zone - although I still need to go down a few points, and now my sugar levels are higher which is characteristic of one of my meds.

I gave myself a pass for Monday and Tuesday of last week.  But my overall adherence for the month dropped significantly.  Maybe I should keep an extra supply in my car as well?

Sick Days Due to Chronic Conditions

One of our pharma salespeople brought me the USA Today front page for the weekend of April 4-6. Not for the Final Four update, but for the snapshot of Sick Days. I am not that technically inclined to post to the snapshot picture, but it was a graph that charted the "numbers of work days lost per year to affected workers of these chronic conditions":

Depression/Mental Illness: 26
Cancer: 17
Respiratory Disorders: 15
Asthma: 12
Migraine: 11

One of the main points of medication adherence we stress at Intelecare is how it affects not only the patient but all stakeholders. In this case, the employer is loosing work days due to chronic conditions which could be controlled with the proper medical adherence. Also, when their employees return to work, they will most likely need a day or two to adjust and get back on track.

I will not approach cancer, as there are to many variables, but patients who suffer from depression/mental illness have horrible adherence rates, and fall into relapse due to not taking their medications properly. When they then react to an episode by taking their medication, they start a whole new cycle, waiting for the drug/s to take effect.

Patients who suffer from respiratory disorders and asthma generally do not take their medications unless they have an attack, when it is too late. As for migraine sufferers, there are preventative medications that, for the most part, are not taken as prescribed. My wife and father-in-law suffer crippling migraines, but refuse to take their medications, instead, to live with the pain and lie in bed for a day or two until their reactive medication takes effect.

Medication adherence is the biggest drug problem today. I hate to beat the statistic drum, but $177 BILLION annually in unnecessary healthcare costs and lost revenue is a lot of money. With employers' investing money and resources into wellness and preventative health programs, EAPs and the like, it is time for them to address medication adherence.

84% of non-adherent patients cite simple forgetfulness as the reason for not taking their medications. That is up from 64% two years ago. It is time for a change in medication adherence. It is time for Intelecare. Sometimes a reminder is all you need.

My Health

In February of this year, I was diagnosed with high Triglycerides and high Cholesterol. Mostly hereditary - have you seen the Vytorin ads? - and somewhat my diet. My doctor put me on Tricor, and I have been pretty adherent. In July, I stopped taking it for two weeks while I awaited a new script but otherwise everyday.

My new doctor (my old MD went back to research) didn't know if Tricor was the right drug, so he sent me for blood work.

He gave me the results today.

The good news is that all my levels went down: Total 247, LDL 149, HDL 38 and Triglycerides 301. The bad news is my HDL went down 10 points (very bad considering this is the "good" cholesterol and 40 or higher is recommended). The LDL went down 50 points (very good 130 is recommended), and my total is only 47 points out of the top part of the spectrum. So I am feeling pretty good about myself. I still need to eat better, lose more weight and exercise more effeciently - but who doesn't?

The point to all of this - other than letting you all know about my health, which is top of mind in your lives - is that within two minutes of questioning, my MD asked if I had been taking Tricor regularly. I said yes, except for that two week period, and he said "Everyday?" And I said, "Yes, everyday." I was going to tell him that I am the Director of Corporate Development for a healthcare technology company that focuses on enabling medication adherence and that a get daily text, voice and email reminders, but I didn't need to get into it.

It then occured to me that if I said I was taking the Tricor (see White Coat Adherence) and was not, that all of his diagnosees would be off. If he thought the Tricor wasn't working (technically it would not be working because I would not be taking it), and prescribed something else - it could really mess up my system. I never really thought about medication adherence this way, only that by not taking your meds, your condition gets worse.

My MD was happy to see my numbers and my weight go down and he gave me a choice: keep losing weight, eat better and exercise and see what happens in three months, or do all of that and take another medication in conjunction with the Tricor. He wanted to make sure I would stay adherent to another medication. Putting me on Niacin would increase my pills to 4 a day (I am on another med in the morning and bedtime). 32 million people are on 3 or more medications. Plus, he gave me an antibiotic to take for 10 days to knock a sinus infection out which I have had for two weeks.

So now, my total pill count is at 5 pills, 4 medications.

The better news is the rare blood disease he was worried about only needs to be checked every three months. So there is more time at the lab for me. If I stay adherent to the Tricor and the Niacin, and loose more weight (he said 10 lbs), and eat better (I do have the occational french fry, and ice cream) - I should have all my levels in the right range and not have to take any medications.

This would be optimal.

So, I will set up more reminders for myself, get into the routine of taking a new drug and everything should be right as rain.

As long as there are not any horrible side effects - he mentioned hot flashes - and the drugs fall into my formulary. By my son's 1st birthday, I will be a new man!

A Little Shamless Promotion

I am not that technologically savvy - I let our programmers handle that end of the business - but I learned how to post pictures yesterday and wanted to share our booth at the 2007 Working Mother WorkLife Congress. We were exhibiting to launch our product offering to employers. Intelecare's Personal Reminder Platform increases medication adherence by sending user created reminders via email, text and voice messaging. We serve the needs of patients and caregivers via our website, Intelecare.com, and with our API, our technology can be integrated into any exiting website as a fully branded adherence solution.

For example, Employer X has a wellness program on their website, with Intelecare's API, Employer X can offer medical reminders (ie. daily medication, refills, appointments, etc...) to their employees. Intelecare handles all the backend programming and message delivery. All the client needs to worry about it their front end design.

Reasoning? 23% of all employer health insurance costs are related to patient medication non-adherence. 64% of patients who are non-adherent cite they simply forget to take their meds. 45% of Americans are on medication. 50% of them are non-adherent. Thus shouldn't employers want to lower their healthcare costs by focusing on medication adherence - a very simple problem that costs the US $177 billion annually in lost revenue and unnecesssary healthcare costs? We think so.

Our API is also available to insurers, pharmaceutical companies, social health networks, EAP providers, and pharmacies. As part of our Enlighten Together program, we offer our Express (email only) solution to non-profits that focus on chronic diseases. All of our products and services are outlined on our website, Intelecare.com.

With that bit of promotion, I shall retire to find more information about this devastating pandemic that affects us all somehow. Please visit the NCPIE site, NCPIE Home to read their August report on medication adherence to find more facts and figures - as well as their call to action.

Stay adherent!