| |
| |
|
|
|
Affordable Drugs: Saving Money by Splitting Pills
One of the least appreciated cost-savers in medical treatment is the simple act of splitting pills. Suppose you're a U.S. citizen with depression who needs to take Lexapro brand of escitalopram oxalate, a commonly prescribed antidepressant, at a typical starting dose of 10 milligrams (mg) per day. Let's figure out how much your treatment will cost, both by month and by day. For purposes of illustration I'll use prices shown online at drugstore.com. If you buy thirty Lexapro 10-mg tablets (which is how the prescription is usually written) it will cost you $70.15 per month or $2.34 per day to get treated. But what if you buy Lexapro 20-mg tablets and take a half-pill each day? Medically, this treatment is the same. But look what happens to unit prices. Thirty Lexapro 20-mg tablets cost $69.99. We need just 10 mg per day, so we split the 20-mg tablets in half to make our 10-mg doses. (The tablets are even scored to make this easy.) In this case it costs you just $35.00 per month or $1.17 per day to get treated. Your daily price just dropped by half! Isn't that amazing? And it's not just an isolated example. If you do a similar analysis for many other drugs, you'll find that taking half of a double-strength pill costs substantially less than taking all of a regular-strength pill. Or another way of saying this is that the cost of a month's treatment is driven more by the number of pills involved than by the total number of milligrams taken. Is this an accident of pricing? Should we be whispering about this? Is this pulling something over on the drug companies? Hardly. If you think that multi-billion-dollar companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange make pricing mistakes, then I've got some choice swamp-land in Florida I'd love to sell you. So why would drug companies create these pricing mismatches (read: opportunities)? To understand this, let's walk through two prescribing scenarios. First, suppose a doctor is prescribing Lexapro to a patient who is lucky enough to have drug insurance. The patient pays a predetermined co-payment for each month's worth of medication, so he or she has the exact same out-of-pocket expense whichever way the prescription is written. So will the doctor write for thirty 10-mg pills or fifteen 20-mg pills? Your guess is probably right-the prescription will be written for the larger number of lower-strength pills. The retailer and the drug company will get full price. They're happy. The patient doesn't need to break tablets in half and the doctor doesn't need to take time to explain why pills have to be broken, so they're happy. What's not to like? The only loser is the insurance company. Do the doctor or the patient care? (Let's see, how many favors has the insurance company done for the doctor and patient lately?) Now here's the second prescribing scenario. Joe Workingman has no drug insurance and has to shell out cash to pay for the full price of medication. The doctor feels that 10 mg daily of Lexapro is needed. This time, the doctor prescribes fifteen Lexapro 20-mg pills per month, instructing the patient to take a half-pill per day. Medically, there is no loss of efficacy. The patient is pleased to pay less money. The doctor is a hero for being thoughtful and clever. Because the doctor still prescribed the same product, the drug company is happy. (The drug company would rather get half their price than nothing. Besides, they've already priced this scenario into their drug.) So the drug company wins either way, particularly if they're competing against a similar product made by another company that the doctor might choose instead. In fact, all it takes for everyone to be happy is a breakable tablet. Admittedly, some pills are difficult to break in half (but not excessively difficult, or else the drug company wouldn't capture the low-end market). This is where pill-cutters come in handy. Every drugstore has them. They're cheap because they're made out of nothing more than plastic and razor blades. They're better at splitting pills than your thumbs or a paring-knife because they break pills more evenly, and the pieces don't go skittering across the counter. In the author's practice there are some pill-splitting overachievers who even manage to break quadruple-strength pills into quarters. Imagine the savings in doing that. In fact, the only obstacle to saving the patient money is if the drug company puts their product into capsules, because capsules can't be split. Would a drug company do such a mean-spirited thing? You betcha. Lexapro was the sixth so-called serotonin-reuptake-blocker to come on the market, so it had to compete with all the earlier drugs in its class. But the first serotonin-reuptake-blocker to come on the market had first-mover advantage and was able to retain market-share even after the competing products arrived. This first-mover was the world-famous Prozac brand of fluoxetine, made by the Eli Lilly Company. So what did Lilly do after competing products appeared? They stone-walled the consumer by never ever putting their product into anything other than a capsule. Moreover, for the entire time their product was still patent-protected, they never produced a higher-strength capsule. So if you needed a higher dose of Prozac, you had the honor of paying for two or three capsules per day. Why did they choose such a consumer-unfriendly approach? Because they could. (Everyone now turn toward Indianapolis and wave to the nice people at Lilly.) My medical students look at me strangely when I start talking about publicly traded companies and market forces while I'm supposed to be teaching them about medicine. But the way I look at it, if you don't understand market forces, then you'll never understand why things in medicine are the way they are. (C) 2005 by Gary Cordingley Gary Cordingley, MD, PhD, is a clinical neurologist, teacher and researcher who works in Athens, Ohio. For more health-related articles see his website at: http://www.cordingleyneurology.com
MORE RESOURCES: Buy Website Internet Traffic. Website online advertising. Buy full page popunder advertising and increase website traffic to your sites. Bad Credit Loans - Loans for people with bad credit. Access online government grants and financial credit services instantly online. Digital Streaming Radio On Your Mobile Phone - La Vella Mobile Radio. La Vella Mobile Radio Gives You Access To Over One Hundred Of The Hottest Streaming Radio Stations From Around The World And Brings Them To The Palm Of Your Hand, Right On Your Mobile Phone. Get Streaming Radio On Your Cell Phone! Audio And Video Streaming For Multimedia Purposes. This Is A Complete Step By Step Guide To The Beginners Who Want To Install And Setup Audio And Video Streaming For Multimedia Purposes On The Internet.
|
|
|
|
RELATED ARTICLES
A Look At Acid Reflux Treatment Heartburn is a by-product of digestion, specifically affecting the esophagus and the stomach. The esophagus is a tube that delivers food into the stomach, and it has a valve that opens and closes to allow food in and to keep it down during digestion. Buy with confidence at Online Mexican Pharmacy The foremost benefit of buying prescription medicines and other medical supplies from a Mexican pharmacy is the secure buying procedure and easy on the pocket rates. The health and medical care laws in Mexico are not that strict infact completely different and relaxed as compared to the US laws. Affordable Drugs: Saving Money by Splitting Pills One of the least appreciated cost-savers in medical treatment is the simple act of splitting pills. Suppose you're a U. Accutane Side Effects Lawyer: Hair Loss, Depression, Suicide You probably know the drug isotretinoin by its trade name, accutane. Accutane is a powerful drug often used to treat acne. Cetyl Myristoleate for Arthrtis: Science or Speculation There are a lot of fabulous stories about Cetyl Myristoleate (also known as CMO or CM) floating across the Internet. Mine is one of them. Fifteen Ways to Fight Heel Pain There are many different causes of heel pain, but the most common cause is plantar fasciitis (plan * tar fash* ee * I * tis). If you experience a sharp pain in your heel when you first step down in the morning, it is most likely due to plantar fasciitis. Zicam Side Effects: Shortens Colds But Permanently Destroys Sense of Smell Zicam is a homeopathic intranasal zinc remedy that is intended to reduce the length of a cold. It is either taken in a spray or a swab. OxyContin Addiction: Doctors & Drug Lords OxyContin is a narcotic drug, an opiate, that has been approved by the FDA to legally treat chronic pain. Chronic pain is documented medical condition, a progressive disease of the nervous system and spine that causes constant a patient to experience constant, excruciating pain. Antibiotics 101- What You Absolutely Need to Know IntroductionAntibiotics are said to be the greatest contribution of modern day science helping the doctors to think beyond microorganinsms.their importance is felt much more in developing countries where the infections are prevalent. NIH Official Altered Drug Study NIH Official Altered Drug StudyDr. Edmund Tramont, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease Division of AIDS, altered the conclusions from a safety report on pregnant women taking the drug nevirapine in order to cover up its negative side effects. Medical Error Crisis The unfortunate truth about medical errors is that they plague the poor and uninsured, reflecting the great medical inequality in our country. For those who do not consider medical errors to be a problem, consider this: medical errors kill between 44,000 and 98,000 Americans every year. Top Ten Reasons Why We Hate IBS! Irritable bowel syndrome can be a nightmare?constant diarrhea and terrible stomach pains, or unbelievable constipation and never-ending gas. While it's good to stay positive and keep looking for help, sometimes it's even better to just have a good old moan!So, without further ado, I would like to present the top 10 reasons why we all hate IBS. Naturopathic Medicine Naturopathic Medicine is an holistic approach that relies on natural remedies. Sunlight, air, and water are thought of as natural healers; this, along with nutritional supplements and massage therapies are all part of naturopathic medicine. Why Modern Medicine is the Greatest Threat to Health There is the underlying assumption that modernity translates into better health. A corollary of this logic is that we can live our lives pretty much as we want because we can always buy a repair. Lipitor Side Effects Lipitor is a drug intended to help lower cholesterol. The generic name for this brand-name medication is atorvastatin. How You Can Erase Low Back Pain Using the Latest Medical Techniques! "If you're one the nine out of ten adults in the United States who suffers from low back pain, I have good news for you!" states Dr. Nathan Wei, a board-certified rheumatologist and Clinical Director of the Arthritis and Osteoporosis Center of Maryland. Mind Altering "It's a chemical imbalance." I've heard those words so many times in the last decade, it's becoming routine for Doctors to blame everything on it. Bextra, Vioxx and Side Effects - Do You Need Aa Lawyer? The recent withdrawals of the prescription medications Vioxx and Bextra from the marketplace have many people concerned. Studies show that the use of Vioxx could increase the likelihood of strokes and heart attacks; Bextra carries those same risks and also increases the chances of contracting Stevens-Johnson Syndrome, a potentially fatal skin disease. Lunesta Sleeping Pills: A Quick Guide To Lunesta When was the last time you enjoyed a good night's sleep? I'm talking about feeling tired, heavy, and relaxed - the times when you might say "wow! I love air conditioning" and fall right into a deep sleep. If you haven't fallen asleep quickly and woken up feeling refreshed and ready for anything, then you're not alone. Irritable Bowel Syndrome: Simple Self-Help Tips If you have been diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), you will know how difficult it is to treat. Doctors can be dismissive of IBS symptoms such as diarrhea, constipation and bloating, and when treatment is offered it may only help for a short while before the distressing symptoms return.
|
