How to Design a Medication Adherence Pilot Program
You should not have to trust a new vendor. You should be able to test one. This page sets out how to design a medication adherence pilot program that is small enough to approve, honest enough to learn from, and easy to walk away from. It is also, word for word, the standard pilot we offer practices, pharmacies, home health agencies and care programs.
We are at the validation stage. No proven clinical outcomes, no HIPAA certification, no SOC 2. The pilot is how we earn the next step.
How to Partner With a Medication Adherence Technology Vendor
Three decisions make or break a pilot: who is in it, how long it runs, and what it costs. Here is how we set each one.
A defined group of consenting patients
Usually 10 to 40 patients on daily medication who live alone or whose family has asked for help. Each patient agrees in advance, and each caregiver contact is authorized in writing. Sarah's first call is a short hello where she asks if it's all right to call each day. Nobody is enrolled by surprise.
60 to 90 days
Long enough to see a pattern across a refill cycle and a few bad weeks. Short enough to approve without a committee. Two calls a day at agreed times, a retry when nobody answers, and a call to the authorized caregiver when a real person still has not picked up.
A paid pilot fee, then per-patient pricing
A pilot fee between $250 and $1,500 depending on the organization and the setup involved, then $5 to $10 per enrolled patient per month if you continue. Enterprise and MTM arrangements are priced on volume. The price is in the agreement before the first call.
How to Measure the Success of a Medication Reminder Program
Measure what the calls actually do. Do not let anyone, including us, claim a clinical outcome the pilot did not measure.
What we report weekly
Call delivery rate: did the call go out and connect. Answered rate: did a real person pick up. Acknowledgment rate: did the patient say they had taken their medication. Caregiver escalations: how many, for whom, and when. Staff time: minutes your team spent on reminders, before and during.
What you add from your own records
Refill timing, visit notes, nurse call logs, or any measure your quality team already tracks. Those stay yours. If the first numbers justify it, adherence and clinical measures can be evaluated with your clinical team against your data in a later stage.
What a number does not mean
An acknowledgment proves someone answered the call and what they said. It does not prove medication was taken, and it does not independently prove who answered. An escalation means a call was not answered, not that a dose was missed. Every report says so.
Before the pilot starts, write down what "continue", "change" and "stop" look like in numbers. A delivery rate below an agreed floor is a reason to stop. A staff-time saving you can see in the tally is a reason to continue. Agreeing this first is what makes a pilot a test instead of a sales process.
What Should a Healthcare Organization Include in a Medication Reminder Pilot Agreement?
One document, plain words, signed before anything is handled. Ours covers these seven things.
Scope, consent and roles
Who is enrolled, how consent is recorded, who the authorized caregiver is for each patient, and what each party is responsible for. The service provides reminders and reports whether a call was answered; it does not verify ingestion and does not replace clinical care.
Escalation, privacy and data
The retry protocol, who gets the caregiver call and what it means, and the neutral wording used so no medication or medical detail is disclosed. Where HIPAA applies, a business associate agreement is signed before any protected health information is handled. We do not claim HIPAA certification.
Measures, price and exit
The five measures above and your own, the weekly report format, the pilot fee and the per-patient price afterwards, and a clear exit: termination terms, data retention and deletion, and a transition plan. You should be able to leave without being trapped in our workflow.
That is how to design a medication adherence pilot program you can sign on a Tuesday and judge on a Friday 90 days later. Limited scope, consenting patients, agreed success measures, a paid pilot, then per-patient monthly pricing, and a door that opens from the inside.
How to Design a Medication Adherence Pilot Program
Tell us about your organization and the patients you have in mind. We reply within one business day with a draft pilot outline and a price.