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Impact of a pharmacy benefit change on new use of mail order pharmacy among diabetes patients: The Diabetes Study of Northern California (DISTANCE)
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4 2015
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Source: Health Serv Res. 50(2):537-559
[PDF-412.58 KB]
Details:
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Alternative Title:Health Serv Res
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Personal Author:
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Description:Objective
To assess the impact of a pharmacy benefit change on mail order pharmacy (MOP) uptake.
Data sources/study setting
Race-stratified, random sample of diabetes patients in an integrated healthcare delivery system.
Study Design
In this natural experiment, we studied the impact of a pharmacy benefit change that conditionally discounted medications if patients used MOP and prepaid 2 copayments. We compared MOP uptake among those exposed to the benefit change (n=2,442) and the reference group with no benefit change (n=8,148), and estimated differential MOP uptake across social strata using a difference-in-differences framework.
Data collection/extraction methods
Ascertained MOP uptake (initiation among previous non-users).
Principal findings
Thirty percent of patients started using MOP after receiving the benefit change vs. 9% uptake among the reference group (p<0.0001). After adjustment, there was a 26 percentage point greater MOP uptake (benefit change effect). This benefit change effect was significantly smaller among patients with inadequate health literacy (15% less), limited English proficiency (14% less) and among Latinos and Asians (24% and 15% less compared to Caucasians).
Conclusions
Conditionally discounting medications delivered by MOP effectively stimulated MOP uptake overall while unintentionally widened previously existing social gaps in MOP use because it stimulated less MOP uptake in vulnerable populations.
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Pubmed ID:25131156
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Pubmed Central ID:PMC4329275
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