(Press-News.org) The Medicare Part D program would have saved $977 million in a single year if all branded prescription drugs requested by prescribing clinicians had been substituted by a generic option, according to a new study by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. And if Medicare patients had requested generic drugs instead of brand name drugs, the Medicare Part D program would have saved an additional $673 million in one year, for a total savings of $1.7 billion.
Medicare Part D offers supplemental outpatient drug coverage plans for seniors age 65 and older and people receiving disability benefits, and accounts for approximately one-third of total prescription drug spending in the U.S.
Despite laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia promoting generic drug dispensing, the study found that in 2017 under the Medicare Part D program, prescribing clinicians and patients together requested brand name prescription drugs over generics 30 percent of the time when a brand name drug was dispensed.
Among the 169 million filled prescriptions analyzed in the study, 8.5 million involved dispensing a brand-name prescription drug when generics were available. Of these, 17 percent (1.4 million claims) involved the prescribing provider requesting a brand-name drug over a generic version and, in another 13.5 percent (1.1 million claims) patients requesting brand name drugs versus generic options.
The study will be published online March 2 in JAMA Network Open.
"Even with laws in place, requesting a brand name drug happens way more frequently than it should," says Gerard Anderson, PhD, professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School. "This dispensing pattern results in exponentially higher costs for both the Medicare Part D program and patients."
For the study, the researchers analyzed Medicare Part D prescription drug claims from 2017. The analysis drew from a random sample representing 20 percent of Medicare beneficiaries and 224 drugs that had at least one generic substitute and at least 1,000 claims. The researchers analyzed information from each claim, including the type of drug dispensed, Medicare Part D spending, and the patient out-of-pocket spending.
Medicare patients would also benefit by paying less for prescriptions drugs. The study found that Medicare patients would have saved $161 million in 2017 if prescribing providers had requested generic drugs over brand name options. In addition, Medicare patients would have also saved $109 million if patients had requested generic drugs over brand name options. In all, Medicare patients spent $270 million more than necessary for prescriptions drugs in the year studied.
While branded prescription drug dispensing accounts for only 5 percent of Medicare Part D drug claims when both brand and generic drugs are available, these findings underscore how costly brand name drugs are to Medicare beneficiaries and the Medicare program.
Recent research has found that skepticism about generic medications is common among clinicians and patients. Surveys have found that more than one-third of patients reported a preference for branded products to generics, and 46 percent of patients asked their provider to prescribe a brand name drug over a generic.
The study also found that in 2017 the Medicare Part D program spent a total of $4.42 billion on brand name prescription drugs where no specific drug selection was indicated by a clinician or pharmacist. The authors recommend that the Medicare program look into these open-ended prescriptions, to see if it can reduce expenditures by encouraging opting for generic over brandname drugs when available.
The findings suggest that policies targeting both the clinician and the patient could have the greatest potential to promote generic drug use and therefore cost savings. Improving clinicians' perception of generic medication, raising awareness of the availability of generic drugs, and limiting direct pharmaceutical marketing can have substantial influence over the patients' medication preferences.
"Patients should always be mindful of the extra costs for themselves and for taxpayers associated with requesting a brand-name prescription drug," says Ge Bai, PhD, CPA, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management. "Prescribing clinicians can also play an important role in educating their patients on the safety and effectiveness of generic drugs."
INFORMATION:
"Factors Associated with Prescriptions for Branded Medications in the Medicare Part D Program" was written by Mariana Socal, Ge Bai, and Gerard Anderson.
The study was supported by Arnold Ventures.
WASHINGTON, March 2, 2021 -- Cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death globally. Unfortunately, the heart cannot regenerate new tissue, because the cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells, do not divide after birth.
In their paper, published in APL Bioengineering by AIP Publishing, Syracuse researchers developed a shape memory polymer to grow cardiomyocytes. Raising the material's temperature from 30 degrees Celsius to 37 degrees Celsius turned the polymer's flat surface into nanowrinkles, which promoted cardiomyocyte alignment.
The research is part of the growing field of mechanobiology, which investigates how physical forces between cells and changes ...
A 'Fish DJ' at The University of Queensland has used her knowledge of cool beats to understand brain networks and hearing in baby fish.
The DJ-turned-researcher used her acoustic experience to design a speaker system for zebrafish larvae and discovered that their hearing is considerably better than originally thought.
PhD candidate Rebecca Poulsen from the Queensland Brain Institute said that combining this new speaker system with whole-brain imaging showed how larvae can hear a range of different sounds they would encounter in the wild.
"For many years ...
[LAKEWOOD, CO; BRIDGEWATER, NJ; March 2, 2021] Two of the world's leading veterinary organizations are proud to announce updated recommendations in the 2021 AAHA/AAFP Feline Life Stage Guidelines. The American Animal Hospital Association (AAHA) and the American Association of Feline Practitioners (AAFP) convened a Task Force of experts in feline medicine to define distinct feline life stages and provide a framework for individualized healthcare plans.
Understanding a cat's life stage and lifestyle greatly impacts healthcare strategies. Veterinary professionals have a responsibility to stress ...
New energy tariffs could leave people on bad deals even worse off despite the potential benefits for everyone, research has found.
The study, led by the University of Leeds, found new types of energy contracts designed for a low carbon future could benefit all types of customer, with opportunities to sell excess energy from solar panels or incentives for using energy at off-peak times.
However, many people were unlikely to choose them because they were disengaged from the energy market, didn't trust energy companies, or already feel satisfied with their current tariffs. ...
Advances in wearable devices have enabled e-textiles, which fuse lightweight and comfortable textiles with smart electronics, and are garnering attention as the next-generation wearable technology. In particular, fiber electronic devices endowed with electrical properties, while retaining the specific characteristics of textiles, are key elements in manufacturing e-textiles.
Optoelectronic devices are generally constructed using layers of semiconductors, electrodes, and insulators; their performance is greatly affected by the size and structure of the electrodes. Fiber electronic components for e-textiles need to be fabricated on thin, pliable threads; since these ...
The agricultural cultivation of the staple food of rice harbours the risk of possible contamination with arsenic that can reach the grains following uptake by the roots. In their investigation of over 4,000 variants of rice, a Chinese-German research team under the direction of Prof. Dr Rüdiger Hell from the Centre for Organismal Studies (COS) of Heidelberg University and Prof. Dr Fang-Jie Zhao of Nanjing Agricultural University (China) discovered a plant variant that resists the toxin. Although the plants thrive in arsenic-contaminated fields, the grains contain far less arsenic than other ...
WASHINGTON -- About 17 years ago, J. Martin Laming, an astrophysicist at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, theorized why the chemical composition of the Sun's tenuous outermost layer differs from that lower down. His theory has recently been validated by combined observations of the Sun's magnetic waves from the Earth and from space.
His most recent scientific journal article describes how these magnetic waves modify chemical composition in a process completely new to solar physics or astrophysics, but already known in optical sciences, having been the subject of Nobel Prizes awarded to Steven Chu in 1997 and Arthur Ashkin in 2018.
Laming ...
Travellers looking to book a hotel should trust their gut instinct when it comes to online reviews rather than relying on computer algorithms to weed out the fake ones, a new study suggests.
Research, led by the University of York in collaboration with Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, shows the challenges of online 'fake' reviews for both users and computer algorithms. It suggests that a greater awareness of the linguistic characteristics of 'fake' reviews can allow online users to spot the 'real' from the 'fake' for themselves.
Dr Snehasish Banerjee, Lecturer in Marketing from the University of York's Management School, said: "Reading and writing online reviews ...
A UK wide survey of 2252 adults, carried out five weeks into the first lockdown revealed 95% of those who took part were following lockdown restrictions. Of that 95% more than 80% reported finding it challenging. Adjusting to changes in daily routines, and mental and physical health struggles were the most common challenges faced by participants. Women and adults under the age of 55 were most likely to report experiencing challenges.
The research, 'What challenges do UK adults face when adhering to COVID-19-related instructions? Cross-sectional survey in a representative sample'*, was published in the journal, Preventive ...
TAMPA, Fla. - Advanced melanoma is one of the deadliest types of cancer, with a 5-year survival rate of only 27% for patients with distant metastases. Recent advances in targeted therapies and immunotherapies have greatly improved patient prognosis; however, many patients eventually develop resistance and disease recurrence. Researchers at Moffitt Cancer Center are investigating how to combine and sequence new therapies to improve survival. In a new article published in Cancer Immunology Research, the Moffitt team shows that sequential administration of immunotherapy followed by targeted therapy prolongs anti-tumor responses in preclinical models and may be a potential ...
