A growing number of seniors say they can’t afford prescription drugs, a study said Thursday. JAMA network open found.
Last year, about one in five adults over the age of 65 did not take their medications, delayed taking them, or took less than prescribed medicines because of cost concerns, according to the study. or taking someone else’s medicine.
“It was pretty amazing,” said study lead author Stacey Ducetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee.the study published Medical Care magazine revealed in 2016 that about one in seven seniors did not take their medications as prescribed because of the cost.
“That’s a pretty big leap,” Dusetsina said.
The findings are based on a national survey of more than 2,000 older adults conducted between June 2022 and September 2022.
Dusetsina said inflation and rising prescription drug costs were to blame. infamous compared to other countries of similar size and wealth.
The study may not reflect the younger generation’s experience, but other studies show that they too struggle to pay for certain drugs, such as insulin, she said.
In some cases, people continue to take their medications as prescribed despite the cost, but they may have to resort to other, sometimes extreme, means to get their medication, Dusetsina said. .
Approximately 30% of seniors used copay cards or coupons to purchase medications. A quarter of respondents asked doctors for cheaper drugs, and about 17% of those said they shopped at pharmacies to find lower prices.
More than 8% of respondents said they live without basic necessities such as gasoline and groceries to buy medicines, and 4.8% said they borrowed money to buy medicines. answered.
Dr Adam Gaffney, an emergency physician at Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts and an advocate for universal health care, said the findings were consistent with early research and what was seen in the real world. He was not involved in the research.
“I’m sure every doctor has heard in the clinic that patients don’t take their medicines, don’t refill them, or start taking their medicines because of the list price.” said he.
The anti-inflation bill, signed just before the research study ended, aims to bring down the price of expensive prescription drugs for the elderly, said the executive director of the Medicare Policy Program at the KFF (formerly Kaiser Family Foundation). said Tricia Newman. .
On January 1, legislation capped Medicare seniors’ insulin costs at $35 a month, prompting insulin manufacturers to quickly follow suit for private insurance subscribers. But some other provisions of the law, such as a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap on drug spending and negotiated drug pricing, aren’t expected to go into effect for a few more years.
“Future polls will tell us how much additional action is needed to bring drug prices down,” said Neumann, who was not involved in the study.
In the meantime, outside groups may need to take action, Gaffney said.
Billionaire Mark Cuban launched the Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company last year to offer discounts on some generic drugs. A study published last June found that buying generic drugs at the same prices offered by the Cost Plus Drug Company could have saved Medicare nearly $4 billion. bottom.
Dusetsina also said more doctors should feel comfortable talking to patients about whether they can afford the drugs.
Nearly 90% of the respondents in this study said they were willing to talk to their doctor about the cost of the drug.
“Doctors are worried that patients may not want to talk about it,” she says. “I think one of her ways of normalizing these conversations is by asking people if they want to have the conversation.”
