Patients Do Not Buy Some Prescription Drugs Because Of Their Cost

Patients Do Not Buy Some Prescription Drugs Because Of Their Cost.
In these muscular commercial times, even people with health insurance are leaving medication medications at the pharmacy because of high co-payments. This costs the pharmacy between $5 and $10 in processing per prescription, and across the United States that adds up to about $500 million in additional condition sorrow costs annually, according to Dr William Shrank, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical at Harvard Medical School and lead author of a new study. "A little over 3 percent of prescriptions that are delivered to the Rather formal aren't getting picked up".

So "And, in more than half of those cases, the instruction wasn't refilled anywhere else during the next six months". Results of the study are published in the Nov 16, 2010 consummation of the Annals of Internal Medicine. Shrank and his colleagues reviewed facts on the prescriptions bottled for insured patients of CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefits manager and citizen retail pharmacy chain. CVS Caremark funded the study.

The study period ran from July 1, 2008 through September 30, 2008. More than 10,3 million prescriptions were filled for 5,2 million patients. The patients' common life-span was 47 years, and 60 percent were female, according to the study. The mean family income in their neighborhoods was $61762.

Of the more than 10 million prescriptions, 3,27 percent were abandoned. Cost appeared to be the biggest driver in whether or not someone would take leave of a prescription, according to the study. If a co-pay was $50 or over, subjects were 4,5 times more probably to abandon the prescription adding that it's "imperative to talk to your doctor and druggist to try to identify less expensive options, rather than abandoning an expensive medication and going without".

Drugs with a co-pay of less than $10 were depraved just 1,4 percent of the time, according to the study. People were also a lot less likely to leave generic medications at the old-fashioned apothecary counter, according to Shrank.

The medications most frequently abandoned were cough, cold, allergy, asthma and film medications, those used on an as-needed basis. Insulin prescriptions were abandoned 2,2 percent of the time, but Douglas Warda, manager of pharmacy for ambulatory services at the University of Chicago Medical Center, said this might be a expense issue, but it could also be that some people are afraid to inject insulin. The swat also found that antipsychotic medications were abandoned 2,3 percent of the time.

Drugs least likely to be profligate included opiate medications for pain, blood pressure medications, birth control pills or hormone replacement therapy, and blood-thinning medications, according to the study. Young plebeians between the ages of 18 and 34 were the most favoured to forgo their prescriptions, and new users of medications were 2,74 times more probable to leave their drugs behind.

Prescription orders that were delivered to the pharmacy electronically - via the computer - were 64 percent more fitting to be abandoned than prescriptions walked into the pharmacy. "We're to be sure not saying that e-prescribing is bad; it's great, but there appear to be some unintended consequences". There was no way to forecast if people never tried to pick up their prescriptions, or if they went to retrieve them but chose to leave them behind because of the cost.

Warda said he believes that more patients might collect up their medications if the instructions from their physicians were clearer. For example, prescriptions for proton push inhibitors were left at the pharmacy 2,6 percent of the time. These medications grind the amount of acid in the stomach and can help prevent heartburn or more serious problems. "If the medical doctor message is, 'You need to take these medications for two to three months and it will knock down your pain and help your body heal,' fewer people might abandon these medications".

Plus, if cost is an issue for you, overturn it up with your doctor ahead of time. "Don't get blindsided at the pharmacy. Always ask your doctor if there's a generic option, or if there's something cheaper that might work just as well. Sometimes the crowd are embarrassed to say anything, but it's better to ask and get a medication you can afford herbalvito.com. "If you get to the pharmacy, and you can't grant the medication, follow up with your doctor or ask the pharmacist if there's a cheaper alternative," suggested Warda.