"Popular new anti-obesity medications can help people lose 10 to 20 percent of their body weight, yet a new study indicates that about 40 percent of those prescriptions go unfilled. Affordability, say researchers, is likely a factor. Anna Sinaiko, associate professor of health economics and policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, embarked on the research with colleagues to fill in knowledge gaps about how GLP-1 drugs are used by patients."
"To learn more, Sinaiko and colleagues from Harvard, the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Duke University, and the University of Colorado turned to a database of electronic medical records at the University of Colorado Health System that they linked to pharmacy claims. In the work, published recently in the JAMA Health Forum, researchers analyzed 9,848 prescription orders from 6,094 individual patients."
"She said a lot of attention has been paid to the medications' high cost - $900 per month for those not using insurance - and to issues such as whether they should be covered by Medicare. They also found that, even with insurance, the co-pays and other out-of-pocket costs averaged $71.90 per prescription. That varied significantly by group, with Black patients paying an average of about $41.15, Hispanic patients $63.69, and white patients $78.37."
Popular GLP-1 anti-obesity medications can produce 10 to 20 percent weight loss but show substantial nonadherence at the point of dispensing. A linked dataset of electronic medical records and pharmacy claims covered 9,848 prescription orders from 6,094 patients. Overall fill rate was 60.1 percent, with Black patients at 55.3 percent, Hispanic patients at 58.4 percent, and white patients at 60.9 percent. Average out-of-pocket costs were $71.90 per prescription despite insurance, with variation by group: Black $41.15, Hispanic $63.69, white $78.37. High list prices and affordability likely contribute to unfilled prescriptions.
Read at Harvard Gazette
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