How should pharmacists counsel patients on continuous glucose monitors?

CGM counseling is becoming a core pharmacy service, especially now that over-the-counter CGMs exist. Key counseling points include sensor placement and wear, warm-up periods, reading trends rather than single values, when to confirm with fingersticks, app setup and data sharing with the care team, and setting realistic expectations about what patterns mean. Pharmacists are often the only clinician a patient sees between visits, making this touchpoint disproportionately valuable.

What should a pharmacist do when a patient asks about a health app?

Treat it as a counseling opportunity. Ask what the patient wants the tool to do, check for medical claims versus wellness claims, flag privacy considerations for consumer apps, watch for interactions with the medication plan - for example apps giving dosing advice - and either support the choice, suggest a validated alternative, or recommend discussing it with the prescriber. A plain-language evaluation checklist is an efficient handoff.

How do I start a digital health service without disrupting workflow?

Start with one service line matched to your patient population - CGM counseling or adherence technology are common entry points - confirm your state scope of practice and any collaborative practice agreement requirements, define the workflow and documentation before launch, establish the payment model up front, and measure results before expanding. One well-run service builds the case for the next.

Does digital health threaten or expand the pharmacist's role?

The evidence points to expansion. Digital tools automate transactional tasks while increasing demand for exactly what pharmacists uniquely provide: medication expertise, accessible clinical counseling, and continuity between physician visits. Pharmacies that pair digital health services with their accessibility advantage are positioning as community health hubs rather than dispensing points.

How do I keep up with digital health as a pharmacist?

A sustainable mix: one or two digital medicine journals, pharmacy association digital health resources and continuing education, a small set of curated newsletters, and one conference a year. Digital.Health maintains curated directories of journals, newsletters, conferences, and reports to make this efficient.

A Digital Health Guide for Pharmacists

Q: Can pharmacists bill for digital health services?

Increasingly yes, through several routes: medication therapy management programs, remote therapeutic monitoring services furnished through incident-to arrangements or in collaboration with billing practices, chronic care management support, collaborative practice agreements, state Medicaid and commercial payer programs, and cash-pay service models. Direct billing eligibility varies significantly by payer and state, so verify with your state board, payers, and compliance resources before building a service line.

Q: Do prescription digital therapeutics go through the pharmacy?

Some do. Prescription digital therapeutics are distributed through hub models, specialty pharmacy pathways, or direct fulfillment depending on the product. Where pharmacy is in the loop, pharmacists handle order processing, benefits investigation, onboarding, and adherence follow-up - the same clinical services that make pharmacy valuable for specialty medications.

Q: How is AI being used in pharmacy practice?

The main areas today are operational: workflow and queue optimization, inventory forecasting, and documentation support. Clinically, AI supports drug utilization review, interaction screening, adherence risk prediction, and patient communication. As with all clinical AI, pharmacist review remains essential - AI assists judgment, it doesn't replace it, and verification against primary references remains the standard for anything patient-facing.

The pharmacist's guide to digital health and AI-enabled care, from Digital.Health by Parisa Vatanka, PharmD, Co-Founder and CEO. Topics: pharmacy as the most accessible point of care and digital health navigation hub; five pharmacy service frontiers including medication adherence technology and smart packaging, continuous glucose monitor (CGM) counseling including over-the-counter CGMs, dispensing and supporting digital therapeutics and prescription digital therapeutics (PDTs), telepharmacy and virtual counseling, and AI in pharmacy operations including drug utilization review and documentation; payment and sustainability models including medication therapy management (MTM), remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM) code family 98975-98981, chronic care management, collaborative practice agreements (CPAs), test-to-treat models, and cash-pay services; counseling patients on health apps and digital tools; a six-question evaluation lens for pharmacy; and a five-step framework for launching a pharmacy digital health service line.

Why pharmacy, why now

Pharmacy is digital health’s natural front line.

The positionPatients see their pharmacist far more often than any other clinician — no appointment required. As health tools move onto phones, wrists, and skin, that accessibility makes pharmacy the natural place where digital health gets explained, chosen, connected, and sustained.

Three forces are converging on the pharmacy counter. The tools arrived where pharmacists already work: over-the-counter continuous glucose monitors, connected blood pressure cuffs, smart adherence packaging, and digital companions to the drugs you dispense — all purchased, picked up, or asked about at the pharmacy. The scope of practice keeps widening: test-to-treat models, expanded immunization authority, and collaborative practice agreements have established the template of the pharmacist as a clinical service provider, not only a dispenser. And the payment models are maturing: from MTM to remote therapeutic monitoring, mechanisms now exist to sustain pharmacist clinical time — unevenly, but far more than a decade ago.

The transactional parts of dispensing are being automated. The judgment parts — medication expertise, accessible counseling, continuity between physician visits — are becoming more valuable, because digital health generates more data, more products, and more patient questions than physicians alone can absorb. This guide is about stepping into that role deliberately.

Where practice meets technology

Five service frontiers for pharmacy.

Each of these builds on something pharmacy already does well — and each has real programs running today.

💊

Adherence technology

Smart packaging, connected caps, adherence apps, and medication synchronization form a stack pharmacy is uniquely positioned to run — you dispense the medication, the packaging, and the follow-up. Adherence data also anchors remote therapeutic monitoring programs.

📉

CGMs & connected devices

With over-the-counter CGMs now on shelves alongside prescription sensors, blood pressure cuffs, and pulse oximeters, device counseling — placement, app setup, reading trends, sharing data with the care team — is becoming a signature pharmacy service.

📱

Digital therapeutics dispensing

Where prescription digital therapeutics route through pharmacy or hub pathways, the workflow is familiar specialty territory: order processing, benefits investigation, onboarding, and adherence follow-up — applied to software instead of a specialty drug.

📞

Telepharmacy & virtual counseling

Remote verification, video MTM, and virtual device onboarding extend pharmacist reach into rural and homebound populations — and let one clinical pharmacist serve multiple sites. State rules vary; the model is established.

🤖

AI in pharmacy operations & clinical work

Operationally: queue and workflow optimization, inventory forecasting, and documentation support. Clinically: AI-assisted drug utilization review, interaction screening, adherence-risk prediction, and patient communication drafting. The standing rule mirrors medicine’s: AI assists pharmacist judgment and everything patient-facing gets verified against primary references — a discipline pharmacists already live by.

Making it sustainable

Payment models that sustain the service.

Clinical services survive on payment models, not enthusiasm. The landscape for pharmacists is uneven but genuinely improving — here is the map.

Model	What it pays for	Pharmacist route in
MTM programs	Comprehensive medication reviews and targeted interventions, anchored by the Medicare Part D benefit.	Direct and established — the foundation many digital services layer onto.
Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM)	Monitoring of therapy adherence and response data — the CPT 98975–98981 family.	Growing: typically via incident-to arrangements, collaboration with billing practices, or employment within them. Direct billing eligibility varies by payer and state.
Chronic care management (CCM)	Non-face-to-face care coordination for multi-condition patients.	Pharmacists frequently furnish components within care teams under supervision arrangements.
Collaborative practice agreements	Protocol-based clinical services — initiating, adjusting, monitoring therapy.	State-dependent scope; the legal chassis for many pharmacist-run digital programs.
State & commercial programs	Medicaid pharmacist services, provider-status provisions, value-based contracts.	Expanding state by state — check your state’s provider-status landscape.
Cash-pay services	Device onboarding, CGM counseling packages, wellness consults.	Immediate and simple; often the proving ground before payer contracts.

Practical caution: pharmacist billing eligibility is the most state- and payer-variable topic in this guide. Codes, supervision requirements, and provider-status rules change — verify with your state board, payers, and association resources before building a program on any single mechanism.

The new counseling moment

Counseling patients on digital tools.

“Is this app any good?” is becoming as common at the counter as questions about supplements — and it deserves the same structured skepticism. A workable counseling frame in ninety seconds: ask what they want the tool to do; check whether it makes wellness claims or medical claims (medical claims warrant evidence and regulatory status); flag privacy for consumer apps, which usually sit outside HIPAA; and watch for collisions with the medication plan — apps that suggest dosing, supplement stacks, or tapering are squarely your territory.

Then close with a handoff: support the choice, suggest a validated alternative, or recommend a conversation with the prescriber. For patients who want to go deeper, our plain-language guide to digital health and 8-question evaluation checklist are built to hand across the counter — literally or by QR code.

Before you recommend

Six questions before a tool enters your practice.

1. Claims vs. evidence. Do the product’s claims match its published evidence and regulatory status? Wellness claims need less; medical claims need peer-reviewed support.

2. Fit to your population. Was it studied in patients resembling yours — age, conditions, language, digital access?

3. Medication-plan safety. Does the tool give advice that could interact with therapy — dosing suggestions, supplement pushes, symptom management that masks red flags?

4. Data & privacy. Where does patient data go, who can see it, and can the patient export and delete it? Consumer apps usually sit outside HIPAA.

5. Workflow & documentation. Who onboards the patient, who sees the data, where is it documented — and does that take minutes or add them?

6. Sustainability. Is there a payment model — billable service, program funding, or cash-pay — or does this run on goodwill until it quietly stops?

From idea to service line

Launching a digital health service, step by step.

Pick one service line, matched to your patients

CGM counseling for a diabetes-heavy panel; adherence technology for polypharmacy; device onboarding in a community with access gaps. One service, done visibly well, beats three run thin.

Confirm scope & agreements

Check your state scope of practice and whether a collaborative practice agreement, protocol, or supervision arrangement is needed. Settle this before marketing anything.

Design workflow & documentation before launch

Who identifies eligible patients, who counsels, where data lands, what gets documented and where. If the service depends on stealing minutes from the dispensing queue, redesign it.

Establish the payment model up front

MTM, RTM arrangement, CCM support, CPA-based service, or cash-pay — decided and verified before launch, not discovered after burnout.

Measure, then expand

Track enrollment, clinical measures, and time spent. Results earn the next service line — and give you the story for prescribers, payers, and your own leadership.

Reference

A pharmacy digital health glossary.

Eighteen terms from where pharmacy practice meets digital care.

Medication therapy management (MTM): Structured pharmacist services optimizing medication regimens, anchored by the Medicare Part D benefit.
Remote therapeutic monitoring (RTM): CPT family (98975–98981) covering monitoring of adherence and therapy-response data — a key opening for pharmacist involvement.
Collaborative practice agreement (CPA): Formal agreement letting pharmacists provide defined clinical services under protocols with prescribers; scope varies by state.
Telepharmacy: Remote delivery of pharmacist care — counseling, verification, MTM — by video, phone, or secure messaging.
Digital therapeutic (DTx): Software delivering an evidence-based therapeutic intervention for a medical condition.
Prescription digital therapeutic (PDT): FDA-authorized therapeutic software requiring an order; may route through pharmacy or hub distribution.
Continuous glucose monitor (CGM): Skin-worn sensor measuring glucose continuously; prescription and OTC versions both create counseling opportunities.
Adherence packaging: Smart or organized packaging — pouches, blister packs, connected caps — supporting and often recording medication taking.
Medication synchronization: Aligning refills to one pickup cadence — often the operational backbone of adherence and monitoring programs.
Digital companion: An app paired with a specific drug or device supporting onboarding, adherence, and side-effect management.
Drug utilization review (DUR): Structured review of prescribing and use for safety and appropriateness — increasingly AI-assisted, always pharmacist-verified.
Point-of-care testing (POCT): Diagnostics performed in the pharmacy, from A1c to infectious disease, often paired with digital results delivery.
Test-to-treat: Models where pharmacists test and initiate protocol-based treatment — a template for digitally enabled pharmacist services.
Chronic care management (CCM): Non-face-to-face care coordination for multi-condition patients; pharmacists frequently furnish components within care teams.
Specialty hub: The services layer around specialty and prescription digital products — benefits investigation, onboarding, adherence support.
Patient-generated health data (PGHD): Health data patients create outside clinical settings — adherence logs, CGM streams — increasingly flowing to pharmacists.
E-prescribing: Electronic prescription transmission — the rails on which digital therapeutic ordering increasingly runs.
Digital formulary: A curated list of vetted digital tools a pharmacy or health system recommends, analogous to a medication formulary.

Common questions

Pharmacists frequently ask.

Can pharmacists bill for digital health services?

Increasingly yes, through several routes: MTM programs, RTM services via incident-to or collaborative arrangements, CCM support, collaborative practice agreements, state Medicaid and commercial programs, and cash-pay models. Direct billing eligibility varies significantly by payer and state — verify with your state board, payers, and association resources before building a service line.

Do prescription digital therapeutics go through the pharmacy?

Some do — via hub models, specialty pharmacy pathways, or direct fulfillment depending on the product. Where pharmacy is in the loop, the work is familiar specialty territory: order processing, benefits investigation, onboarding, and adherence follow-up, applied to software.

How should I counsel patients on CGMs?

Cover sensor placement and wear, warm-up periods, reading trends rather than single values, when to confirm with fingersticks, app setup and sharing data with the care team, and realistic expectations about what patterns mean. With OTC CGMs now on shelves, this counseling moment often happens only at the pharmacy.

What do I do when a patient asks about a health app?

Ask what they want it to do, check wellness vs. medical claims, flag privacy for consumer apps, and watch for collisions with the medication plan — dosing advice and supplement pushes are your territory. Then support the choice, suggest a validated alternative, or route to the prescriber. Our evaluation checklist makes an efficient handoff.

How is AI actually being used in pharmacy?

Operationally: workflow and queue optimization, inventory forecasting, documentation support. Clinically: AI-assisted DUR, interaction screening, adherence-risk prediction, and patient communication drafting. Pharmacist verification against primary references remains the standard for anything patient-facing.

How do I start without disrupting the dispensing workflow?

One service line matched to your population, scope and agreements confirmed, workflow and documentation designed before launch, payment model established up front, and results measured before expanding. If the service depends on stealing minutes from the queue, redesign it before launching it.

Does digital health threaten the pharmacist’s role?

The evidence points to expansion, not replacement. Digital tools automate transactional tasks while increasing demand for what pharmacists uniquely provide — medication expertise, accessible counseling, and continuity between physician visits. Pharmacies pairing digital services with their accessibility advantage are becoming community health hubs.

How do I keep up with the field?

One or two digital medicine journals, pharmacy association digital health CE, a few curated newsletters, and one conference a year covers most of the signal.

Cite this page Vatanka P. The Pharmacist’s Guide to Digital Health & AI-Enabled Care. Digital.Health; 2026. Available at: https://digital.health/digital-health-guide-for-pharmacists

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Curated with clinical oversight · Co-founded by Parisa Vatanka, PharmD