Medication nonadherence drives the largest avoidable cost
According to an article in IMShealth.com, patients not adhering to their doctors’ medication guidance experienced complications that led to an estimated $105 billion in annual avoidable healthcare costs. While the underlying reasons for nonadherence are varied and longstanding, the growing use of analytics and collaboration among providers, pharmacists and patients appear to be advancing both the understanding and effectiveness of intervention programs.
The article states, avoidable costs of more than $200 billion are incurred each year in the U.S. healthcare system as a result of medicines not being used responsibly by patients and healthcare professionals, according to a study released by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. This represents 8 percent of the country’s total annual healthcare expenditures and amounts to millions of avoidable hospital admissions, outpatient treatments, pharmaceutical prescriptions and emergency room visits for patients.
The report – Avoidable Costs in U.S. Healthcare: The $200 Billion Opportunity from Using Medicines More Responsibly – examines six areas that contribute to unnecessary costs: medication nonadherence, delayed evidence-based treatment practice, misuse of antibiotics, medication errors, suboptimal use of generics and mismanaged polypharmacy in older adults. Together, these areas lead to unnecessary utilization of healthcare resources involving an estimated 10 million hospital admissions, 78 million outpatient treatments, 246 million prescriptions and four million emergency room visits annually. The study found significant opportunities for improvement – to ensure that patients receive the right medicines at the right time, and take them in the right way.
Read full article at: IMShealth.com
Metabolic Validation, via pharmacogencomic testing is helping healthcare professionals determine, right drug, right dose, right person.
For more information, contact:
PGx Medical
Individualized Care – Personalized Medicine
405-509-5112
info@pgxmed.com