For those of us in the healthcare industry, we all appreciate that the advice of doctors only has a chance of working if patients act on that advice, right? Since prescription medications require paperwork and authorization, surely there could be some analyses done to find out if patients take prescriptions to their local drug stores to be filled. Up until now, however, the majority of research on whether patients fill prescriptions has focused on patient refills, not necessarily whether patients fill their first prescription. This lack of action on filling first prescriptions is referred to as "primary nonadherence" by researchers at Harvard Medical School who recently dug deep into a 75,000 patient database of pharmacy claims.
The New York Times wrote in an article last week that the Harvard study represents the largest look at "primary nonadherence" to date. It turns out that patients don't fill their first prescription more than 20 percent of the time. The study was published in the February issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
It's great to have this new data on when patients don't fill their prescriptions and it is only possible because prescription medicines require physician documentation. It seems very logical to think that seeing a doctor for an illness or condition should set off a chain of events in which the doctor prescribes a treatment and then the patient acts on the physician recommendation.
Of course, physicians also provide other documented recommendations to their patients, but the healthcare system is not set up to verify whether patients actually go out and exercise, change eating habits or purchase an over-the-counter medicine per a physician recommendation.
I know, for me, unless I have a regular check in with my doctor and I anticipate being asked about how I am doing with what has been recommended, I have a tough time adhering to the guidance of my doctors.
Leave a comment