Showing posts with label Medication Non-Adherence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Medication Non-Adherence. Show all posts

Saturday, March 26, 2011

'Dispense As Written' Prescriptions May Add $7.7 Billion To Annual Health Care Costs, Researchers Found

About 5% of prescriptions submitted by CVS Caremark Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) members in a 30-day period during 2009 included a "dispense as written" (DAW) designation.

This practice - whereby doctors or patients demand the dispensing of a specific brand-name drug and not a generic alternative - costs the health care system up to $7.7 billion annually, according to a new study by researchers at Harvard University, Brigham and Women's Hospital and CVS Caremark. Moreover, these requests reduce the likelihood that patients actually fill new prescriptions for essential chronic conditions.

In a study published this week in the American Journal of Medicine, the researchers demonstrate that DAW designations for prescriptions have important implications for medication adherence. They found that when starting new essential therapy, chronically ill patients with DAW prescriptions were 50 to 60 percent less likely to actually fill the more expensive brand name prescriptions than generics. "Although dispense as written requests would seem to reflect a conscious decision by patients or their physicians to use a specific agent, the increased cost sharing that results for the patient may decrease the likelihood that patients actually fill their prescriptions," the researchers said.

Click on the "via" link for the rest of the article.

******************************************************
For Health Information you can use, Follow, Connect, Like us on (Most Invites Accepted):
http://www.nursefriendly.com/social/

Twitter!
http://www.nursefriendly.com/twitter

Facebook:
http://www.nursefriendly.com/facebook

What's New:
http://www.nursefriendly.com/new/

Blogger:
http://4nursing.blogspot.com/

Linked In:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/nursefriendly

Nursing Entrepreneurs, Nurses In Business
http://nursingentrepreneurs.ning.com/

Posterous.com
http://nursefriendly.posterous.com

StumbleUpon,
http://www.nursefriendly.com/stumbleupon
******************************************************

Sincerely,

Andrew Lopez, RN
Nursefriendly, Inc. A New Jersey Corporation.
38 Tattersall Drive, Mantua New Jersey 08051
http://www.nursefriendly.com info@nursefriendly.com ICQ #6116137
856-415-9617, (fax) 415-9618

150,000 + Nurse-Reviewed & Approved Nursing Links

http://www.4nursing.com
http://www.legalnursingconsultant.com
http://www.nursinghumor.com
http://www.nursefriendly.com
http://www.nursingcasestudy.com
http://www.nursingentrepreneurs.com
http://www.nursingexperts.com