High Rates of Prescription Abandonment

These shaky economic times aren’t taking a toll on just consumer industries, but also on the health care one as well. A recent Wolters Kluwer Health analysis of the pharmaceutical industry revealed that the rate of prescription abandonment—the number of people who drop off a prescription to be filled at a pharmacy but do not return to pick it up—in the last quarter of 2008 increased to 6.8% from a rate of 5.15% in 2006, a 34% jump. And the higher the prescription co-pay, the higher the rate of abandonment. Co-pays of $100 or more resulted in a 20% abandonment rate while co-pays of $10 or less yielded only a 4% rate.

When once patients insisted on being prescribed brand-name medications and shunned their generic alternates, these lean economic times have seen a dramatic increase in the number of generics being filled. In 2005, the number of generic and brand-name prescriptions filled were about the same, but in 2008, of the approximately 4.6 billion prescriptions filled in the United States, 60% (2.8 billion) were generics. Mark Spiers, President and CEO of Wolters Kluwer, attributes the growing popularity of generics to patient education and acceptance, and $4 generic drug programs offered by big box stores like Wal-Mart and Target.

Given the rising cost of name-brand medications and their often astronomical co-pays, it’s a no-brainer that consumers are turning to more affordable—and just as effective—generic brands.

Source: http://www.wolterskluwer

Article written on: 4/16/2009

Original Source: Wolters Kluwer Health 2008 analysis

URL: http://www.wolterskluwer.com/WK/Press/Latest+News/2009/Apr/pr07apr09a.
htm

Link to forum discussion

Link to Archives of Previous Articles