Willingness to pay for community pharmacies-based medication review service: perspectives of private health insurance firms

Background: The medication review service (MRS) is a valuable community pharmacies-based health service to patients, ensuring optimal medication use and reducing medication errors. Nevertheless, it remains limited in scope and empowerment without remuneration for providing the service. Objective: This study aimed to assess private health insurance (PHI) and third-party administration (TPA) firms’ perspectives regarding the MRS offered by community pharmacies in Jordan and the extent of their willingness to pay for this service. Method: The research was an observational, cross-sectional study conducted using a constructed and validated Arabic questionnaire that was distributed electronically to the key health insurance decision-makers (general managers, operational managers, medical network managers, directors, and supervisors) among all the (22) PHI and TPA active firms that are members of the Jordan Insurance Federation (JIF) and licensed under the insurance administration in the Ministry of Industry and Trade. Participants provided their consent electronically before filling out the questionnaire. Results: 50 health insurance decision-makers agreed to participate in this study. 48% partially (42%) or completely (6%) heard about the medication review service. Most respondents (n=35, 70%) believed the medication review service is expected to reduce the cost of medications. Furthermore, they believed the service is expected to reduce the cost of the medical bill by ensuring the medication is not repeated within a short time unless advised by the doctor, checking the exact dosage regimen of each drug, and using alternative medicines at lower cost (74%, 64%, and 60%) of respondents respectively. Half of the respondents were eager to remunerate for the medication review service, with the majority willing to pay less than 10 Jordanian Dinars (JODs) per patient. Conclusion: Although almost half of the PHI and TPA firms’ decision-makers had not heard about the MRS before, achieving eventual cost savings in the reimbursed medication value strongly motivated them to reimburse for the service. Pharmacy and health policymakers are in place to take further steps to empower the service and find common ground with insurance parties to reimburse it for improved medical health insurance services to their beneficiaries with overall cost savings.