Faculty members on U-M’s Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses soon will be invited to give their opinions on the University’s prescription drug program and its pharmacy benefit manager. The poll will be the first of two in which members of the campus community will be asked to give input regarding AdvancePCS.
During its first meeting of the 2003-04 academic year, the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs (SACUA) Sept. 8 approved the distribution of an electronic opinion poll designed to measure faculty members’ satisfaction with the program.
The Web-based poll will address questions of costs compared to last year’s prescription program, satisfaction with the mail order system, and overall level of satisfaction with the new program, which began Jan. 1.
“There is no harm in asking these questions of the faculty,” said Stan Berent, professor of psychology, psychiatry, neurology, and environmental and industrial health. “Having SACUA ask these questions will be different than having them come from the provider.”
The SACUA office will send an e-mail to all current and retired faculty sometime during September, says Dr. Charles Koopmann, SACUA chair and associate chair of the Otorhinolaryngology Department. The e-mail will guide participants to a URL, which will prompt the user’s uniqname and password. In addition to questions, the poll will include a comments box for additional feedback.
John Lehman, professor of biology, made the motion to proceed with the poll, and it passed. Silvia Pedrazza, associate professor of sociology, made a successful motion for an addendum that added three demographic questions: age range, gender and previous prescription drug provider.
SeonAe Yeo, associate professor of nursing, said the information would be useful, as women use different medications and could have different experiences with the program. The information will be collected electronically by the SACUA office and analyzed by members of the committee.
Keith Bruhnsen, assistant director of staff benefits, says the Benefits Office will conduct its own customer satisfaction survey in January 2004.
“We want to make sure we understand the problems and perceptions people have with the University’s program and make improvements, where necessary,” says Bruhnsen, who adds that AdvancePCS has a research service available to U-M as part of the University’s contract.
Bruhnsen says the survey will include 5,000 randomly selected faculty and staff, and will be divided between faculty and staff who have used the mail order pharmacy and those who have accessed only retail pharmacies for prescription drugs.
“Both surveys should be done, and we should ask for the AdvancePCS results and make all of it public,” said Bill Ensminger, professor of pharmacology who made the original motion for the SACUA poll at the Nov. 18 Senate Assembly meeting. “[SACUA’s] is a simple survey to see the level of satisfaction with AdvancePCS.”
