Common use of Methodology for Collecting Pharmacy-Reported Variables Clause in Contracts

Methodology for Collecting Pharmacy-Reported Variables. If the household member with the prescription gave written permission to release his or her pharmacy records, pharmacy providers identified by the household were contacted by telephone for the pharmacy follow-back component. Following an initial telephone contact, the signed permission forms and materials explaining the study were faxed (or mailed) to cooperating pharmacy providers. The materials informed the providers of all persons participating in the survey who had prescriptions filled at their place of business and requested a computerized printout of all prescriptions filled for each person. Pharmacies can choose to report information in computer assisted telephone interviews (CATI). The CATI instrument was also used to enter information from printouts. For each medication listed, the following information was requested: date filled; national drug code (NDC); medication name; strength of medicine (amount and unit); quantity (package size/amount dispensed); and payments by source. When an NDC was provided, often the drug name and other drug characteristics were obtained from secondary proprietary data sources.