by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Margaret Rode, PharmacyChecker.com | Apr 26, 2011 | Drug Prices
A new study published this month finally offers positive news about prescription drugs. Findings from The Use of Medicines in the United States: Review of 2010, by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, show that 78% of all prescription orders filled are for generic drugs, up from 75% in 2009. Aside from Lipitor, which comes in at number 12, the top 21 most widely used drugs, recorded by filled prescription, are all generic. This is good news because it means that even as brand name prices continue to rise, consumers can still save money on generics.
Consumers need not look past our borders for low priced generic medication since the U.S. usually has the lowest prices. You can find U.S. generic drug prices by comparing prices on www.pharmacychecker.com.
Despite the good news about generic drug utilization, uninsured Americans are too often deprived of access to affordable brand name drugs in the United States where there is no generic alternative. The problem is getting worse, as evidenced by brand name drug price increases of 8.3.% last year and rising numbers of Americans not taking their medication due to cost. Indeed, this is the reason millions of Americans are seeking affordable medication from outside the U.S.
Tagged with: brand name drugs, consumers, Drug Prices, generic, IMS Institute, IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, Lipitor, pharmacychecker.com, prescriptions, United States
by Gabriel Levitt, President, PharmacyChecker.com and Prescription Justice | Apr 15, 2011 | Drug Prices
Last month the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a no contest grant to be awarded to the National Consumers League (NCL) to examine the problem of prescription adherence. The problem is one we discuss almost every week on this blog: Americans are not taking their prescribed medication. Therefore, when we came across an FDA initiative aimed at tackling the problem we were intrigued.
In the FDA announcement we expected to find mention of some of the known causes for Americans not taking their prescribed medications, such as cost, which has previously been proven as the number one reason Americans skip prescriptions. Amazingly, there was not one mention of drug prices or cost in the announcement. In choosing NCL as the recipient of the $40,000 grant it appeared that FDA might be on the right track After all, NCL knows from its own commissioned study that drug prices are the main reason Americans don’t take their medications. NCL has brought together “stakeholders” from government, non-profit organizations and the private sector. This sounds like a good idea. (more…)
Tagged with: AARP, Canada, Drug Prices, FDA, National Consumer's League, National Medication Adherence Campaign, prescription adherence, prescriptions
by Gabriel Levitt, Vice President, PharmacyChecker.com and Margaret Rode, PharmacyChecker.com | Mar 3, 2011 | Drug Prices
Just over one year ago we launched this blog with a post called Drug Price S.O.S. – 120 Million Americans Struggle to Afford Medicine. That number came from a 2008 Harvard School of Public Health study showing that 4 in 10 Americans have trouble affording their prescription drugs. Sadly, the situation has gotten worse.
As reported on MSNBC.com and Reuters, new information released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics shows a dramatic increase in the number of American adults who are unable to afford healthcare. From 1997 to 2009 the precentage of Americans not taking their medications due to cost nearly doubled from – increasing from 4.8 to 8.4%. The earlier Harvard study mentioned above shows 40 percent of Americans struggling with costs; that could mean pill splitting, skipping doses, taking alternatives, or simply going without needed medication. The recent government statistics are clear about how many Americans don’t take their medication due to cost: 25 million! [8.4% of 300 million (the U.S. population) = 25 million]. (more…)
Tagged with: brand name drugs, Drug Prices, Harvard, health insurance, MSNBC, Online Pharmacies, personal drug importation, pill splitting, prescription abandonment, prescriptions, recession, Reuters, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States
