Taking the right pill is worth big money
When people forget to take their meds, it’s not just bad for their health: they actually lose money. Not just them, but the entire healthcare system. If people don’t cope with their treatment, their condition will get worse, their doctor won’t understand why, they will visit him and hospitals more often, and need new and expensive drugs. It is estimated that near 300 billion dollars could be saved every year if only people would take their meds, which to give an idea, is about the size of the GDP of Singapore, the most developed healthcare system in the world (IMF).
According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 66% of the national healthcare budget is spent on treating seniors with chronic conditions. Non-adherence to medication among the elderly has a particularly negative impact in the Medicare system, which covers this specific population. The Department of Health and Human Services counts over 1.9 million adverse drug events among Medicare enrollees every year, 180,000 of them being life-threatening or even fatal. Among these adverse drug events, 25% are estimated to are preventable, a rate that increases up to 50% regarding life-threatening or fatal events.
Non-adherence is naturally a bigger risk in older Americans who take multiple medication every day, and the costs associated with non-adherence in chronic patients are by far the most urgent to target. In fact, the CDC calculates that 95% of the healthcare costs with older adults in the US are spent in the treatment of chronic conditions. If we focus on the weight of these figures in the general healthcare system, just consider that the cost of treating a 65+ year old adult is about three times higher than treating younger adults. The 25% increase in healthcare spending in the US by 2020 predicted by CDC, is largely due to the increase of the older population. In fact, Medicare spending is expected to increase from $555 billion in 2011 to $903 billion in 2020.
Furthermore, a study by the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics found that implementing programs and strategies to tackle medication non-adherence could end up saving $300 billion to the healthcare system. The study states that, on average, non-adherent patients incur higher annual costs: $3,700 for diabetes, $3,900 for hypertension, and $7,800 for heart failure. Adherence to diabetes medications alone could save up to $4.7 billion every year.
After two posts about the human cost of non-adherence and chronic diseases among seniors, we now enlightened the terrible financial consequences of this issue. And the results are very clear: staying healthy pays good money.
