Medication Adherence Leads To Lower Health Care Use And Costs Despite Increased Drug Spending — Health Aff

CVS Caremark just released the results of their study “Medication Adherence Leads to Lower Health Care Use and Costs Despite Increased Drug Spending” in the January issue of Health Affairs.

• Looked at pharmacy and medical claims
• 135,000 patients
• Patients with with one of more of the following – congestive heart failure, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia

“There have been many studies through the years that suggest adherence can save on health care costs, but the issue has not been central to health care cost discussions because those studies did not establish a causal link. We took the research further and what we found is that although adherent patients spend more on medications – as much as $1,000 more annually – across the board they spend significantly less for their overall health care costs” by Troyen A. Brennan, MD, MPH, EVP and Chief medical Officer of CVS Caremark (source)

The savings associated with being adherent were:

• Congestive heart failure = $7,823
• Diabetes = $3,756
• Hypertension = $3,908
• Dyslipidemia = $1,258

We can hope that this will help integrated providers understand the importance of a robust pharmacy program to the health of their patients. (To learn how Equiscript works with patients to improve their adherence, you can visit the Equiscript website at www.equiscript.com).