Low pharmacist counseling rates in the Kansas City, Missouri, metropolitan area

OBJECTIVE: To quantify the percentage of patients counseled by community-based pharmacists. METHODS: Phase I consisted of a 15-minute observational period of pharmacist counseling in 50 randomly selected pharmacies in the Kansas City, MO, area. In phase II, a survey was mailed to the same pharmacies to obtain policies, self-reported rates of counseling, baseline workload, and personnel information, as well as perceived communication barriers. RESULTS: Forty-six of 50 pharmacies were observed in phase I after excluding 10 ineligible pharmacies and adding 6 replacement pharmacies. Pharmacists provided counseling in only 14 of the 46 pharmacies (30%). Nineteen percent (20/106) of all patients received pharmacist-initiated counseling. Pharmacists in independent pharmacies were observed counseling a significantly higher percentage of patients than were pharmacists in chain pharmacies (44% vs. 11%; p = 0.014). Technicians were observed counseling 5 patients in chain pharmacies. Detailed verbal counseling, defined as four or more of a group of major counseling components, was provided to only 8 of the 20 patients who were counseled by a pharmacist (40%; 8% of all patients). In phase II, 31 of 51 surveys (61%) were returned. During the requested survey time period, pharmacies estimated that approximately five prescriptions were filled every 15 minutes, 51.5% of which were new. Pharmacists in chain pharmacies reported dispensing greater numbers of prescriptions than did pharmacists in independent pharmacies. These data and the reported counseling rates indicated that 50% of all patient prescriptions should be counseled. This is a higher rate than actually observed. All pharmacies reported that pharmacists completed the counseling; however, 10% of the respondents reported that technicians also counseled patients. Contrary to the findings in phase I, slightly more than 50% of the pharmacists reported using detailed verbal counseling. CONCLUSIONS: The overall observed rate of counseling in community pharmacies is low. In the Kansas City area, independent pharmacists counsel a greater than average percentage of their patients. Even if the national counseling rate is double what was observed, millions of patients are leaving pharmacies without the benefit of pharmacotherapeutic guidance. If pharmacists are slow to meet these challenges, other service providers will relieve pharmacists of that responsibility.