FICO® Medication Compliance Score: #FAIL

Today, on my list serve group at the Society for Participatory medicine, the question was raised about the NY Times Well Blog post by Tara Pope on FICO®s new Medication Adherence Score. I was also inspired by @epatientDave pointing out that @nyceve1 had a blog post this morning. FICO-scoring-millions-of-Americans-on-medication-compliance .

And yes I am angry...because if you look FICOs website here is what they say about their new tool, that is easy to implement. I recommend that any self respecting patient contact them, because they are not in the business of helping patients, they really seem targeted to the Pharma companies, and  "Care Organizations" and "Health Care Payers" (I don't think they are talking about us).

Check out the tabs and pdfs for some fun reading...this is a dangerous tool that doesn't really meausre true compliance...if someone took the medication. So what if I picked up the medicaiton, or opened the glowing cap. As someone on the #SPM list serve group pointed out, "We will not be able to fix compliance problems if the denominator is as wrong as the numerator!!

The words that rub me the wrong way are highlighted in bold. Nor do they really say what data they are pulling...only the following: "third party data sources, name and address, prescription claims when available."

So, yes, I have got my cynical hat on....and my take away is (unless we revolt) Pharma companies are given tools so they can better target their marketing budget and relationships can be further leveraged with doctors ... and, enable deeper relationships with insurance companies who can have further control of what medications are on their formularies, or potentially use the data to develop additional criteria (of course they will use pretty words to make it seem fine) for dropping coverage for patients due to a poor  FICO® score.

It is bad enough that Pharma companies sell their drugs direct to patients, and take doctor offices out to lunch...Anyone see the movie "Love and other Drugs"?

So, I sent them an email. Let's see what they say.....and you can too on their contact page or call US (toll free): +1 888 342 6336

Here is information from the FICO site: (Cynic Hat on)..... highlighted a sampling of text all in blue Oh, and its easy to implement....

FICO® Medication Adherence Score is a powerful tool for predicting individual consumer’s likelihood of adhering to a drug regimen over the next year. This fully HIPAA-compliant solution helps brands identify patients at highest risk for non- compliance, direct marketing tactics where they have the greatest impact on medication adherence and health outcomes, and maximize the return on the consumer marketing budget. While pharmaceutical marketers typically rely on self-reported adherence data to identify non- compliance, FICO can score an entire patient database or list quickly and efficiently using only an individual’s name and address. Many pharmaceutical companies help address this challenge through a variety of consumer-directed programs. FICO can boost the effectiveness of these programs through a revolutionary data-driven approach to identifying a patient’s propensity toward medication adherence. Using the same world- class predictive analytics used to create the FICO® Score, the FICO® Medication Adherence Score accurately predicts an individual’s adherence propensity using a wide array of third-party data sources commonly used by direct marketers in a variety of industries. 

FICO® Medication Adherence Score leverages a patient’s prescription claims history when available and pulls on other third-party data sources when no other information is present.  The result is a powerful and versatile score that can be applied universally across a patient base to predict each patient‘s adherence over the next 12 months. This tool enables care organizations to gauge the right level of action across the patient base to optimize care, case and utilization programs— setting a universal baseline assessment on which survey results or other information can be overlaid if desired/present. The result is a powerful and versatile score that can be applied universally across a patient base to predict each patient‘s adherence over the next 12 months. This tool enables care organizations to gauge the right level of action across the patient base to optimize care, case and utilization programs—

The Medication Adherence Score is available for common chronic conditions, including diabetes, asthma, high cholesterol, hypertension and depression. Harnessing the predictive power of multiple, rich third-party data sources, Medication Adherence Score improves the effectiveness of all intervention targeting efforts.

Recent FICO research has shown that third- party data sources can effectively identify drug adherence propensity and can enhance the precision of models using claims data only. While some of these predictors, such as age and gender, are known to be associated with disease prevalence and adherence trends, FICO has unlocked the predictive power of other data sources, such as retail purchase behavior, geo-credit profiles and income/wealth indicators. The result is a powerful assessment tool that works across a prospective, new or existing patient base with minimal information requirements.AA-compliant solution helps brands identify patients at highest risk for non- compliance, direct marketing tactics where they have the greatest impact on medication adherence and health outcomes, and maximize the return on the consumer marketing budget.

Learn how your organization can benefit from the most advanced analysis solution for predicting medication adherence. Email us at info@fico.co