Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
Many experts have claimed that increasing Medicare beneficiary’s access to prescription drugs through Medicare Part D is cost saving. Even if it does increase cost, by increasing patient adherence to various prescription drugs, Medicare could prevent certain expensive hospitalizations and emergency room visits. The only problem is that it doesn’t. According to Liu et al.…
How much do drugs cost? The answer to this question depends who you are and how you want to measure cost. For instance, MediSpan‘s Master Drug Data Base (MDDB) defines drugs prices as follows: Wholesaler Acquisition Cost (WAC) – the cost reported to Medi-Span by a manufacturer at which wholesalers purchase drug products from that…
According to this article, the answer is: “Both policies decreased medication adherence. The days’ supply policy [decreasing the days supply of each prescription from 100 to 34 days] had a much larger effect on adherence than did the copayment increase. Total Medicaid spending declined from the days’ supply policy, but the copayment policy resulted in…
How do you know if a patient is receiving the correct dose? Better yet, how can you check if your entire patient panel is on the right dosage? Although identifying the ‘right’ dosage is difficult, it is much easier to see if your patients are on the wrong dosage. Medi-Span’s Dose-Chek data provides information on…
To what standard should the FDA hold new drugs? The FDA has a number of choices. Drugs companies could be required to prove that the drugs they make: Do no harm. Are more effective than placebos Are more effective than existing drugs Are more cost-effective than existing drugs, or Are both more effective and more…
Maybe money can’t buy you love…but can it buy you influence over physician treatment choices? That’s what many pharmaceutical and medical device firms are betting on. Concerns about the influence of industry money have prompted universities [10] [10] such as Stanford and the University of Colorado-Denver to ban drug sales representatives from the halls of…
Recent research from Avalere Health, LLC using Medicare Part D reveals some interesting trends. Overall, premiums for fee-for-service prescription drug plans (PDPs) increased by 3%. For beneficiaries who enrolled in a Top 10 plan, however, premiums actually decreased by 6%. This result was driven by a 12% decrease in premiums for the largest PDP, AARP…
According to this study, I would certainly say yes! “The study reviewed pharmacy claims from the CVS Caremark pharmacy benefit management (PBM) book of business for 1.83 million patients taking statins, and 1.48 million patients taking angiotensen converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) or rennin angiotensen receptor blockers (ARBs) between June 1, 2006 and May 30, 2007… During a three-month…
The latest issue of The Atlantic has profiles brave thinkers. One of these brave thinkers is Dr. John Ioannidis, who is profiled in “Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science.” Dr. Ioannidis challenges much of the medical establishment by charging that most medical studies are biased, misleading, or flat out incorrect. In the article, author David…
The Consumer’s Union used Medicare.gov to show that many people could save $3,500-$5,000 by switching to generics. Why don’t more people do so? One reason is the long delays for FDA approval of generics. The FDA’s Office of Generic Drugs is understaffed and thus generic drug approvals takes much longer than it should. Brand name…