Changing the way consumers pay for prescription drugs so that the system more closely resembles paying for cell phones or computer software could increase drug use without altering patients’ out-of-pocket spending, health plan costs, or drug company profits, according to a RAND Corporation study published in the January-February issue of Health Affairs.
Researchers propose that consumers pay an annual “license” fee that would entitle them to a year’s worth of medicine for each prescription they take on an ongoing basis, with a very small or no copayment for each monthly supply. Such a system could be used to pay for medicines that treat chronic conditions such as high cholesterol, diabetes, or asthma without increasing the cost to consumers and may reduce the periods when patients go without such medicines because of the cost, according to the study report, “Drug Licenses: A New Model for Pharmaceutical Pricing.”
Because there would be no monthly out-of-pocket payments for consumers, researchers suggest that patients would be more likely to take their prescriptions. Analyzing past research about the impact of rising copayments on patient compliance, researchers suggest the average annual use among patients taking statins, for example, would climb from 7.8 months to 9.8 months under the new pricing plan. Read the abstract.
