by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Jan 30, 2015 | Drug Prices, Healthcare Reform, Medication non-adherence, Skipping medications
This will not be major headline news anytime soon but it’s true. Last week our friends at RxRights blogged about new data from the Commonwealth Fund showing that the number of Americans ages 19-64 who did not fill prescriptions due to cost decreased to a depressing 35 million in 2014 from the even more depressing figure of 50 million in 2012. Obamacare, lower unemployment, and a stronger economy in which people feel more secure paying for even very expensive medications are largely responsible. Minus the very expensive medications – that’s all good stuff.
And how about international online pharmacies and personal drug importation? Well, just yesterday the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that about 2% of Americans are still buying medication from foreign countries. That’s about 5 million Americans who would potentially go without needed medication if it were not for lower cost foreign medication sold by safe international online pharmacies.
I did not use the word “potentially” loosely. Some of those five million are getting nabbed by rogue online pharmacies, resulting in too many Americans taking substandard, adulterated, or counterfeit medications. If those people are informed properly they will not be victims. PharmacyChecker.com is there for you: if you are one of the 35 million Americans wondering whether you can afford that medication prescribed by your doctor, we’re doing better than ever at empowering you with information that helps you get the medications you need at a price you can afford while steering clear of rogue online pharmacies.
It’s important to remember how dangerous it is to not take the medications you need. One expert at CDC stated: “People who do not take their medication as prescribed have more hospitalizations, emergency room visits and an increased burden of their illness.”
It’s important to note that the CDC report provided lower figures on how many Americans are going without prescribed medications due to cost than the Commonwealth Fund reported: about one in 10. We’re going to look at the data in the coming weeks and provide you some guidance on this discrepancy. But clearly the overall numbers have gotten better in the last two years.
We thrive on these better numbers – more consumers accessing the healthcare they need –but with tens of millions of Americans saying they can’t afford their meds there’s so much more work to be done!
Tagged with: CDC, Commonwealth Fund
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Sam Werbalowsky, Pharmacychecker.com | May 16, 2014 | Advocacy, Drug Prices
AIDS prevention may be revolutionized if healthcare providers start to write more prescriptions for Truvada as a preventative measure for people at high risk for contracting HIV. As reported in the The New York Times, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pushing for expanded use of Truvada as a prophylactic to prevent new HIV cases. To date, it has been primarily used to treat people who have already contracted HIV. If this recommendation is adopted, the number of prescriptions written for Truvada could increase from less than 10,000 per year to 500,000 per year, hopefully lowering the rate of new HIV infections, which has remained steady at 50,000 per year over the past decade.
But what if patients can’t access Truvada because of its cost? After all, a drug doesn’t work if a patient can’t afford to take it. The drug has a monthly cash price of about $1,500 at local U.S. pharmacies. Fortunately, Truvada is usually covered by insurance and Gilead offers an assistance program that covers the first $200 of a co-pay. They also have a program that covers the full cost of the drug for eligible uninsured or underinsured patients. Eligibility is not guaranteed to all!
Even if you’re insured and prescribed Truvada, the high cost might mean difficulties when it comes time to fill the prescription. Many pharmacy benefit formularies put the drug in tier 2 or 3, which means high co-pays. Other formularies place Truvada on a list of drugs that require pre-certification. In that case, the drug might not even be covered at all!
According to FiercePharma, dramatic increases in the number of prescriptions written for Truvada (and therefore requests for pharmacy benefit reimbursements) could increase co-pays and also curtail assistance programs. If that happens, patients may find themselves having to fork over a lot of cash for higher copays, deductibles or co-insurance. Some may very well end up stuck with a $1,500 per month bill.
For these patients, or anyone else who falls through the cracks, international online pharmacies may be an option. Truvada – the brand – is available for about $543.00 internationally; the generic – emtricitabine/tenofovir – not yet available in U.S. pharmacies, is $224.00. This could provide a lifeline for Americans who are prescribed Truvada in the coming years.
Tagged with: AIDS, CDC, Gilead Sciences, HIV, Truvada
