Thursday, December 11, 2003

Higher Drug Copayments May Halt Use by Some Patients
Medscape Medical News story - "To control the costs of employee drug benefit programs, many large employers have adopted three-tier formularies in recent years. Under this approach, enrollees typically select from a range of copayments for drugs, with the lowest fee for a generic drug (tier 1), the next highest for a brand-name drug preferred by the employer (tier 2), and the highest copayment for a brand-name drug not on the preferred list (tier 3). While these "incentive-based" formularies slow the rate of drug spending for employers, they also, depending on their design, lead some employees to discontinue purchasing drugs to manage chronic illnesses, according to a study in the Dec. 4 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine." "med" See also the NEJM abstract of the article.