CVS Caremark Promotes Heart Healthy Behavior and Lifestyle Choices

CVS Caremark is helping spread awareness about heart healthy practices and encouraging patients to follow a heart healthy approach. It reminds patients to stick to their medication regimens and go for preventative health screenings. These steps can contribute significantly to the prevention of heart disease. Timely health check-ups and following prescribed medication regimens can reduce the chances of adverse health conditions that are associated with heart disease.

During the month of February, CVS/pharmacy offered special offers and savings on heart healthy products such as blood pressure monitors, vitamins and aspirin. Several CVS locations also featured a "Heart Health Center" display to make heart healthy products easier to find. Furthermore, the CVS/pharmacy ExtraCare Advantage for Diabetes program offered special deals on CVS Brand aspirin and Nature Made Full Strength Mini Vitamins to its members.

Troyen Brennan, MD, MPH, Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer of CVS Caremark, said: "Knowing your cholesterol and blood pressure levels and understanding the impact that certain factors, such as smoking and obesity, have on your likelihood to develop heart disease can be life-saving information. The more educated a patient is about his or her own risk factors, the more he or she will be able to work with a physician or pharmacist around intervention strategies that can further reduce the harmful onset of heart disease."

CVS Caremark promotes better medication adherence by offering services that are geared to help patients follow medication regimens. Its Pharmacy Advisor program alerts pharmacists when a patient is not following the medication, or has a gap in care. The pharmacist is then in a position to communicate with the patient and the physician in real time. CVS also offers its Maintenance Choice program to pharmacy benefit management patients, enabling them to fill 90-day supplies of maintenance medications at the same lower copay.

Brennan said: "Once a patient is undergoing treatment for heart disease or conditions associated with heart disease, helping them on the path to better health means adhering to physician-prescribed regimens that maintain heart health. This can mean keeping up with good diet and exercise habits, but it can also mean continuing to adhere to prescribed medications. Medication adherence is an often overlooked - but critical - component in treating and preventing heart disease. Patients need to implement medication regimens that ensure they are taking medications at the right times and on a regular basis to prevent the onset of heart disease."

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