When physicians prescribe medications, the doctors assume that patients will take their medications on a regular basis. However, when patients are actually studied, 30% to 50% of adult patients are not consistently taking their long-term medications. This leads to approximately $100 billion in extra health care costs nationally, dollars that could be better used to provide better and more comprehensive care for people. When patients don’t take their medicines, results are worsening of their medical conditions and more hospitalizations.
You would think that the more serious the medical condition, the more likely that patients would accurately take their medicine. But that appears to be wrong! In an interesting article, cancer patients were studied by S. Zafar and co-workers (The Oncologist 2013; Volume 18, Page 381). They found that many patients tried to save money, and 20% of over 250 cancer patients took less than the prescribed amount of medication. Amazingly, 24% of patients did not fill their prescriptions at all! In addition another 19% only partially filled their prescriptions.
Here are my tips to help you take all your medications prescribed by your doctors:
For further information on finding affordable medications, see my “Surviving American Medicine”.