Research

Joel F. Farley, R.Ph., Ph.D. is a pharmacist and pharmaceutical outcomes researcher specializing in the evaluation of pharmaceutical policy changes on patients with chronic health conditions.  His primary research focus is designed to ensure proper implementation of managed care policies in patients with chronic health conditions while safeguarding accessibility to medications for patients who need them.

Dr. Farley has expertise analyzing claims data from secondary data sources.  His prior research has involved the use of data collected from publicly available surveys such as the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and the Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey, private health insurance claims provided from individual insurers including United Health Care and Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, and health claims data collected from multiple insurers such as Market Scan’s Commercial Claims and Encounters (CCAE) data.  Dr. Farley has extensive experience working with Medicaid claims data. Past projects have assessed the impact of Medicaid prescription managed care policies on economic and clinical outcomes in patients with mental illness using Medicaid Analytical Extract data from 13 different state Medicaid programs.  Dr. Farley has published several papers related to prescription management of osteoporosis.  These studies are concentrated around ensuring access to anti-osteoporosis medications in patients vulnerable to fracture.

He has served as a consultant to Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina to support the evaluation of a copayment waiver for medications used to treat chronic diseases.  His assistance in this collaboration was instrumental in the design of a compliance algorithm to track changes in medication adherence and on the evaluation of the impact of this program on medication adherence and the cost of treatment for diabetes, hypertension, congestive heart failure, and hyperlipidemia.  In addition, he is currently collaborating with the AccessCare of North Carolina to evaluate the effect of implementing a medication registry entitled A+KIDS (Antipsychotics – Keeping it Documented for Safety) on patterns of treatment for antipsychotic medications in children and adolescents in the North Carolina Medicaid Program.

Dr. Farley’s research has been funded by grants and contracts from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The American Health-System Pharmacy Foundation, the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality, the Pfizer Foundation, Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina, and North Carolina Community Care Networks.