Survey on Medication Methods for Patients Undergoing Tube Feeding in Insurance Pharmacies

As the community-based integrated care system is advanced in Japan, we can expect an increase in the number of patients receiving medication via tubing at their homes. Under such a trend, it will become increasingly important to provide guidance and support about the simple suspension method to patients receiving medication via tubing and to their caregivers at home. The present study was undertaken to investigate the current status of the calculation of the amount to be billed to the insurer under the recently started tube medication support fee reimbursement system and the method of drug administration to patients receiving tube medication, using a questionnaire addressed to administrative pharmacists at insurance pharmacies. Responses to the questionnaire were collected from 384 insurance pharmacies (53.5%). The percentage of insurance pharmacies practicing the calculation of the tube medication support fee was as low as 2.1% (6/283 pharmacies), and the percentage of pharmacists having experience with guidance about the simple suspension method was also low (13.8%, 47/341 pharmacies). The percentage of insurance pharmacies having made a counter-proposal to physicians prescribing drugs unsuitable for the simple suspension method was significantly higher among the insurance pharmacies having experience with guidance to patients about the simple suspension method (14.9%, 7/47 pharmacies) than among those without such experience. When asked about how the simple suspension method was learned, the majority (55.3%) answered that they learned it on “Internet websites.” Care needs to be taken with the information available on these websites since the reliability of the information is sometimes low. It is desirable, henceforth, that pharmaceutical companies appropriate information about the suspension procedure of their products by means of interview forms, homepages, etc. Furthermore, to enable pharmacists to provide appropriate support about the simple suspension method to patients on tube medication and to their caregivers, it is desirable that hands-on training be provided at the initiatives of pharmacist associations or the like, accompanied by measures such as reinforcing the system for collection and supply of highly reliable information and increasing the opportunities for on-site training.