Effects of Real-time Prescription Benefit Recommendations on Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs: A Cluster Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Rising drug costs contribute to medication nonadherence and adverse health outcomes. Real-time prescription benefit (RTPB) systems present prescribers with patient-specific out-of-pocket cost estimates and recommend lower-cost, clinically appropriate alternatives at the point of prescribing.

Objective: To investigate whether RTPB recommendations lead to reduced patient out-of-pocket costs for medications.

Validation of EHR medication fill data obtained through electronic linkage with pharmacies.

Recent linkages between electronic health records (EHRs) and pharmacy data hold opportunity for up-to-date assessment of medication adherence at the point of care. To validate linked EHR-pharmacy data, which can be used for point-of-care interventions for concordance with insurance claims data for patients in a large health care delivery system. We performed a retrospective cohort study of adult patients with an active antihypertensive medication order and seen as outpatients between August 25, 2019, and August 31, 2019.