Non-adherence – The Health Care Blog

The Solution Never Works If You Haven’t Identified the Problem

Jun 7, 2017

By the DARK GODDESS OF REPLEVIN

I have a bias, I admit it. I am sensitive to studies with a subtext of “those stupid patients, what are we going to do about them?” Read the following rant with that in mind.

A pharmacy benefits manager a/k/a PBM funds a study of patients nonadherent to chronic prescription medication. The premise of the study, Effect of Reminder Devices on Medication Adherence: The REMIND Randomized Clinical Trial (hiding behind a paywall, by the way), is that “forgetfulness is a major contributor to nonadherence to chronic disease medications and could be addressed with medication reminder devices.” Thus, the intervention consisted of sending a population which included folks taking meds for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder either “a pill bottle strip with toggles, digital timer cap or standard pillbox” along with their mail order meds. There was of course a control group who received neither notification or a device. Surprise, surprise! Getting a prize in your Crackerjack box from your PBM does not improve medication adherence. Those stupid patients! Why won’t they do what’s good for them?

The Cost-Response Curve

Jul 11, 2014• 9

By LEONARD KISH and KEVIN O’BRIEN, MD

“Drugs don’t work in people who don’t take them.” C. Everett Koop, former US Surgeon General

Cost-based non-adherence, like any lack of medication adherence, leads to further complications and hospitalizations that could have been prevented. CMS appears to have recognized this when they announced that a new ACO measures on whether “providers have educated patients about the cost of medications” in the 2015 fee schedule. Cost and quality conversations between doctors and patients are becoming a cornerstone to value-based care.

The most expensive drugs are the ones that the patient never takes. Nearly one third of prescriptions go unfilled. When patients cannot afford a medication, and only discover the price or out-of-pocket cost at the prescription counter, it’s a big risk to long-term outcomes.

“It has been well established that a lack of affordability can drive a lack of adherence to a course of medications. Patients who do not take their medications cost the U.S. healthcare system an estimated $300 billion in avoidable medical spending annually due to poorer health, more frequent hospitalizations and a higher risk of mortality”, according to The Center for Health Value Innovation and the Network for Health Value in Innovation.

A lack of medication adherence drives further costs for the system and suffering for patients. Estimates are that more than a third of medicine-related hospitalizations happen because people did not take medicine as directed, leading to over 125,000 deaths.

Medication non-adherence, of course, can have many reasons: side effects, difficulty in administering the drug, and others, but there is clear evidence that cost is a factor driving non-adherence. 27% of Americans did not fulfill a prescription due to financial hardship in 2012 according to a Kaiser Family Survey. As copays, deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses go up, so, likely, will non-adherence, and value-based care, and value-based benefits must understand the costs related to non-adherence.