Not Taking Your Medication? Your Employer Is Paying the Price, Finds Healthentic
Data Shows Nearly 50 Percent of Patients Do Not Take Medication as Prescribed; Costing Americans Nearly $300 Billion
(firmenpresse) - SEATTLE, WA -- (Marketwired) -- 02/12/15 -- , an analytics company that easily identifies health savings for employers, released an analysis today examining the health and financial impact of medication non-adherence. Healthentic looked at nearly 100,000 lives in its database, and found nearly 50 percent of people with prescriptions for diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol do not take their medications as prescribed.
The toll of medication non-adherence is huge. By some estimates, it costs the U.S. health care system between $100-289 billion every year in direct costs.(1,2) Losses in productivity due to health related factors could multiply that by 2.3 times.(3)
"There's a high tragic cost for people who don't take their medications as prescribed -- even for people who take their medication most of the time," said Jeff O'Mara, Chief Executive Officer, Healthentic. "Non-adherence is a huge health problem for individuals, and causes massive amounts of unnecessary costs for employers."
Healthentic's claims data over a full year shows non-adherence resulted in:
128 avoidable hospitalizations for diabetes
Totaling over $2.1 million in avoidable costs
243 avoidable hospitalizations for high blood pressure
Totaling over $4 million in avoidable costs
150 avoidable hospitalizations for high cholesterol
Totaling almost $2.5 million in avoidable costs
Depending on how often they take their medications, non-adherent patients are 63 to 134 percent more likely to be hospitalized for high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes.
While no single solution exists, Healthentic believes employers can reduce the non-adherence problem by:
Identifying health plans with lower out-of-pocket costs for prescription medications
Looking for health care systems with a patient-centered, team approach to care
Targeting outreach to non-adherent employees with programs that have shown success for their specific conditions
"Too many employers are focusing their workplace health efforts on things that don't make an impact to health or costs. Managing specific people and conditions in a population, using tools like medication adherence, is one of the most effective ways to avoid expensive hospitalization and keep people healthy -- if you target the right people," said Al Lewis, Founder and President, Disease Management Purchasing Consortium.
The easiest way for employees to help reduce the non-adherence risk is by taking their medications as directed. Other tips include:
Living a healthy lifestyle
Learning how their medications benefit their health
Maintaining an up-to-date list of medications
Logging personal health indicators (e.g. blood pressure readings for those with high blood pressure, or blood sugar measurements for those with diabetes).
To see the full Healthentic analysis on medicine non-adherence, visit
Healthentic, an innovative analytics platform, is the easiest way to measure population health. Healthentic's gives businesses critical insights using the power of whole health informatics to make changes to their plans and programs in order to lower costs while improving overall employee health and productivity. Healthentic works with more than 10,800 enterprises, and covers more than 38.7 million lives. To learn more, visit .
(1) Viswanathan M, Golin CE, Jones CD, Ashok M, Blalock S, Wines RCM, Coker-Schwimmer EJL, Grodensky CA, Rosen DL, Yuen A, Sista P, Lohr KN. . Closing the Quality Gap: Revisiting the State of the Science. Evidence Report No. 208. AHRQ Publication No. 12-E010-EF. Rockville, MD: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. September 2012.
(2) Iuga AO, McGuire MJ. Adherence and health care costs. Risk Management and Healthcare Policy. 2014: 7, 35-44.
(3) Loeppke R1, Taitel M, Haufle V, Parry T, Kessler RC, Jinnett K. Health and productivity as a business strategy: a multiemployer study. J Occup Environ Med. 2009 Apr;51(4):411-28.
Tom Kim
Grayling
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Datum: 12.02.2015 - 17:00 Uhr
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