Ed Silverman's post today at Pharmalot gives good news from Boehringer-Ingelheim for people using the various state programs for help with their drug costs. The post is best read in its entirety, but here is a pertinent paragraph.
“The agreement extends additional discounts and rebates on HIV medications produced by Boehringer Ingelheim, beyond existing ones mandated by health reform and included in previous agreements, through 2013,” according to a statement from the ADAP Crisis Task Force. “The agreement also extends price freezes on HIV medications purchased by ADAPs. In addition, Boehringer Ingelheim and the ACTF continue negotiations and expect to provide additional discounts and rebates…”
In reference to my previous post on prescription abandonment, I want to add this list maintained by the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. Drug assistance programs are listed by state and company.
One way that people with private health insurance delay health care is abandoning prescriptions. Reuters reports that UnitedHealth Group, WellPoint and Aetna the nation’s largest private insurers, are benefiting from this and other postponed care which has lowered medical claims.
The Wall Street Journal cites data gathered by Wolters Kluwer Pharma Solutions, a health-care data company: "nearly one in 10 new prescriptions for brand-name drugs were abandoned by people with commercial health plans in the quarter, up 88% from four years earlier, when the data were first tracked and before the recession began." Generics are also being abandoned, as shown in the graph below.
Many thanks to Adam J. Fein at DrugChannels for making the figure on p. 636 of the November 16, 2010 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine much more readable.
The percentage of abandoned prescriptions starts to increase at a copayment of $20-30.
The pharmaceutical industry will typically reduce copayments by 25-50% according to Mark Calabrese of Cegedim Relationship Management, a company that manages discounts for the benefit of both the drug makers and the patients. He also reports that the volume of claims for discounts was 300,000 monthly at the end of 2009, and was 500,000 by October 2010. An extensive list of copayment programs is available at the Partnership for Prescription Assistance. Otherwise, the PPA is a non-profit which helps people without prescription drug coverage. The Healthwell Foundation will also help with copayments. The types of assistance that they will and won't provide are listed here. They specifically request that you start with any program that your drug maker may offer and then apply for additional aid.
Finally, if you are completely frustrated in your efforts to contact your drug maker, you can make a video as did this young man with ulcerative colitis. He found Warner-Chilcott's toll-free access to be very poor, so he e-mailed the video directly to CEO Roger Boissonneault.
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