Health care is deeply personal. Patients trust their clinicians to deliver the best possible care — from seeing their provider, to starting on medications, to managing their conditions.
Our pharmacists and care teams form an integral part of helping our consumers get the care they need. It’s critical that we provide safe and quality care no matter how consumers come to CVS Health.
One way we demonstrate both safety and quality of care is by attaining third-party accreditations, which includes meeting or exceeding rigorous standards set by independent organizations that evolve with the latest evidence-based practices.
The right medication at the right time — every time
The number of prescriptions dispensed in our country continues to rise, with 6.3 billion prescriptions dispensed in 2020
After proving that we continue to meet standards for customer service, consumer safety, transparency, and clinical review criteria, we recently were awarded renewal of our Pharmacy Benefit Management Accreditation through URAC. We also keep up with additional URAC, National Care Quality Association (NCQA), and National Association for Boards of Pharmacy (NABP) accreditations, which require continuous learning and improvement in our call centers, digital solutions, and mail pharmacies.
Quality care at a local level
With 85% of the U.S. population living less than 10 miles from a CVS Health community location, consumers rely on us for health screenings, help managing a chronic condition, and to pick up their prescriptions and consult with our pharmacists.
MinuteClinic was the first retail health care provider to earn Ambulatory Care Accreditation from The Joint Commission. To achieve this distinction, providers must show compliance with more than 180 national standards for clinical practice guidelines and more than 500 other performance measurements. CVS Pharmacy has been granted NABP Accreditation in Community Pharmacy, which accreditation sets standards for pharmacies that provide advanced patient care, including medication therapy management, immunization programs, and health and wellness screenings.
We believe that meeting or exceeding these various accreditation standards is just one way to demonstrate we’re delivering quality care in communities throughout the nation.
Rare and complex conditions
Safety is a top priority for patients taking specialty medications, which may be infused or injected and require special handling. Patients taking specialty medications often need more support than those with common chronic conditions, and their complex care regimens may have challenging side effects. In addition to MinuteClinic, CVS Specialty and Coram CVS Specialty Infusion Services maintain accreditation from The Joint Commission. By meeting the strict performance standards for safety and quality of The Joint Commission, we demonstrate we’re bringing our best efforts to our 1.4 million specialty pharmacy patients.
Rare diseases are some of the most challenging to manage. Our rare disease care management program through Accordant connects patients with specially trained nurses telephonically and through digital channels. Our more than 300 Accordant nurses, licensed across all 50 states, help patients understand treatment plans and incorporate lifestyle changes to improve their quality of life. Beyond assisting in the management of the conditions themselves, our nurses assist patients to access local resources that address non-clinical factors that may impact outcomes, including access to transportation and healthy food.
Recently, we were granted a three-year accreditation renewal in Case Management from the NCQA, which sets high standards for indicators including care planning; care monitoring; training and verification; and privacy, security, and confidentiality.
