New Prescription Abandonment Imagine going to the doctor’s office because you are having some pain in your wrist and knees. The doctor diagnoses you with rheumatoid arthritis and hands you a prescription for Humira to help subside the pain and prevent further damage to your joints. Everything seems fine and dandy until you reach the pharmacy to get your script filled. You have insurance but the copay comes out to be $120 for a one-month supply of the medication. You’re already on a tight budget and don’t think it’s worth it to pay since the pain isn’t unbearable. You tell the pharmacist you will come back and pick it up some other time. You never pick it up. Sadly, this is very common occurrence that is increasing throughout America. The rising out of pocket costs of purchasing medication are a major factor that contributes to increasing prescription abandonment. One study shows that about 85 percent of prescriptions are filled when the price at the register is around $30. Once the cost of a prescription surpasses $50, the rate starts to decline, dropping to 76 percent. When the cost of a prescription reaches $90 or more, the number of prescriptions filled drops even further, to 65 percent1. The high costs of prescription …show more content…
Patients often do not receive adequate education or instruction when they are prescribed a new medication3. This can lead to the patient being confused about the medication and being uncomfortable with taking it. One other issue regarding communication are the possibilities of alternatives. Alternatives could be a cheaper version of the drug or just a different dosage form. Patients should always be given an adequate opportunity to discuss alternatives and concerns about a new medication with their provider. If a patient is educated about the medication and offered alternatives, it will decrease the likelihood of
Healthcare professionals must talk to their patients about possible side-effects of drugs they are taking and make sure they understand what can happen. In doing so, patients may start to understand why something is happening to them and it is a normal side-effect, which can not only lead to trust from the patients to providers, but can lead to the passing of knowledge from one to another which may prevent future
It is interesting to see how the United States has a high rate usage of medication comparing it to other countries. Why is it that more people in the United States are hooked on prescription drugs if the cost of medication is much more
A utilitarian perspective may argue that the idea of ‘covert medication administration’ should be considered ethical as it produces the greatest overall balance of benefits and harms. The benefit may be seen as improved patient compliance with the medicine, with less of an issue concerning agitation, and somewhat of an improved safety protocol for both the patients and the healthcare workers. This could potentially aid in the outcome for patients as a result of taking their medication as prescribed. Utilitarians take into account the potential for trust to be broken between patients and healthcare professionals and the possibility of biases in treatment when considering the utility of an action. A utilitarian may argue that the benefits of a certain practice outweigh the harms, particularly in cases where the patient cannot make decisions or is unable to understand or consent to treatment.
Some may argue that physicians cannot be held responsible for a patient’s illegal use of his or her prescription narcotics. However, many physicians write prescriptions for narcotics knowing they will be sold illegally. Requiring physicians to enter prescription information into a national database at the time the prescription is written would serve as a deterrent to physicians who intentionally abuse their prescriptive powers. The article, “Combating the Prescription Painkiller Epidemic: A National Prescription Drug Reporting Program,” relates the story of Callie Hall Herpin, a Houston physician, who sold prescriptions for a total of “$1.7 million in cash” to drug dealers and solicited the help of her office staff and local pharmacies to cover her actions (Shepherd 95).
Americans are spending too much money on medications that they don’t even need. “Americans spend an average of $1,000 per person, per year on prescription drugs.” The people that are spending thousands a year are the ones that keep going back to the doctor 's office to get prescription medicines and getting their doctors to give them the prescriptions. Meanwhile drug prices rise quickly due to unnecessary prescriptions. The price of a drug can be more than 50 times to $750 a pill.2013 to 2014, the amount of money people spent on drugs rose 13 percent.
In this case, patients have made up their mind and have weighed the merits and demerits of the treatment in a rational way. Various elements has contributed to the lack of confidence of the patients to the drugs and failed to motivate them to consume the essential drugs. For instance, due to illiteracy in some patients, it creates a condition where patients are dubious about their medications and may lead to many adverse effects such as drug dependency, development of other diseases as well as decreased in long term efficacy. Psychological state of the patient in which they claimed that particular dugs can remind that they are ill also may bring about the state of non-adherence. Patient counselling and proper communication between patient and physicians are required to encourage patient to adhere to the
In recent years, prescription drug spending has been on a constant rise. From 2008 to 2014, money spent on prescription drugs has increased from $234.1 billion to $374 billion. Drug companies made over nine billion dollars in 2012, and over 259 million prescriptions are written every year, enough for every American adult to have a bottle of pills. This illustrates how the prescription drug market has been continuously increasing. This should not be the case with preventive care becoming more of a focus in the health care system people should be healthy, thus not needing as many prescription drugs.
The problem starts with prescribing these drugs in the first place, and the most logical explanation is to decrease the rate at which we are prescribing them, or to stop
About 1 and every 5 Americans today, are unable to afford the medicine that need to get better. ( ) Many of the major pharmaceutical companies are making billions in profit by having the control of selling and distributing prescribed medication. This leads the United States in a situation that the American people are paying some of the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. These drugs companies making heaps of profit by controlling the market which leads to millions of Americans not being able to afford the prescription medicine that they desperately
Selection of wrong medication due to misdiagnosis. Often go over the counter when they have lost their effectiveness as prescription drugs due to resistance and overuse. Restricted over the counter
Do you have a current medical condition that requires prescription medication? If not, you might develop one in the future. Prescription medication can be very expensive. This is especially true if you do not have health insurance. This is why so many people are always seeking ways to save as much money as possible on the various prescriptions they need to survive.
they would have to pay in the U.S. making it worth the consequence of getting caught at the boarder and possibly getting expired or counterfeit medication online, according to an article in Kaiser Health News “Eight percent of respondents said they or someone in their household had imported a drug at some point, a figure that would translate to about 19 million adults in the U.S. based on current Census population estimates” (Bluth 1). it also states that the “people who had imported medicines ranged from college students in their 20’s to retirees in their 80’s. They bought medications to treat chronic conditions such as high blood pressure and thyroid problems as well as acute problems such as sinus infections and acne” (Bluth 2). I am certain that number is going to continue to grow if someone does not step in and do something to make the Drug companies sell their drugs at a more reasonable price.
But many unexpected results were produced: some drugs became unavailable as a consequences of delays in reimbursement for pharmacies, which were becoming over-indebted; moreover, pharmaceutical companies reduced supplies because of unpaid bills and low profits. [KENTIKELENIS, A, et
Self-medication along with self-care was introduced in the 1980s continuing to develop until the 1990s when it was starting to become a health issue, and in the 2000s efforts were made to educate the public about medications and reducing the normalness of self medicating. (Bennadi, 2013). With healthcare becoming costlier in the United States and more scarce in developing countries self-medication becomes the only option for some people. It was put onto the pharmacist and other health professionals to “give proper instructions for medicines and explain for what it is prescribed so that it will be helpful for the patient to understand and making his own decisions” (Bennadi, 2013). However, even with health professionals discussing the drugs that their patients are consuming people still take medication how they see fit, as well as those who do not seek consultation at all or cannot afford it.
pharmaceutical representatives will often try to see a doctor once every few weeks. Also These representatives have a call list which consists of about 200/300 doctors with up to 120 to 180 special “targets” who they must visit minimally every two or three weeks These little visits, which every doctor probably