Journal of managed care pharmacy : JMCP
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The rising costs of health care and, in particular, prescription drugs remains a challenge. Health professionals' ability to promote cost-effective prescription drug use is critical, yet this subject is not included consistently in the curriculum of most health professional schools. As experts in prescription drug selection, use, and cost, pharmacists are in a unique position to help manage prescription drug regimens for the best therapeutic outcome, while also helping to keep patients' out-of-pocket (OOP) prescription drug costs low. In addition to promoting interprofessional collaboration, pharmacy student-led lectures may provide an effective means to teach prescription drug cost-savings strategies to other health professional students and current prescribers. ⋯ This study demonstrates that a single lecture given by pharmacy students to other health care professional students and current prescribers can improve knowledge of prescription drug cost-saving strategies targeted toward vulnerable patient populations and may increase the likelihood of collaboration between prescribers and pharmacists. The format of this lecture is an efficient and effective way to disseminate important and timely policy information to health care professionals.
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New cytotoxic agents and regimens, as well as immunotherapeutics, have recently been introduced for treatment of colorectal cancer (CRC). ⋯ The health care cost of CRC treatment is increasing significantly over time, which is most likely caused by the use of new regimens, higher chances of surgery and radiation, and occurrence of various comorbidities and metastatic diseases due to increasing survival time.
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Schizophrenia is a chronic, debilitating disease that affects approximately 1% of the U.S. population and has disproportionately high costs. Several factors, including age, gender, insurance status, and comorbid conditions, have been hypothesized to be associated with schizophrenia- related costs. ⋯ Identification of factors associated with a high-cost population may help decision makers in managed care, government, and other organizations allocate resources more efficiently and health care providers manage patients more effectively through assignment of these patients to case managers and appropriate monitoring and treatment.
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Comparative Study Observational Study
Antiviral regimen complexity index as an independent predictor of sustained virologic response in patients with chronic hepatitis C.
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection affects more than 170 million people worldwide, and one-third of them have human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) coinfection. Multiple studies have been conducted in order to identify the factors that may explain different responses to treatment among patients. However, the reasons why HIV-HCV coinfected patients have lower responses to treatment are not clear. In addition, no studies have evaluated the influence of the complexity of the therapeutic regimen for hepatitis C infection on clinical outcomes. ⋯ The medication regimen complexity may be a crucial factor to achieve therapeutic success when treating patients for hepatitis C. The adaptation of this index in patients with HCV provides an objective value of the antiviral regimen complexity and could help us to identify patients in clinical practice who require multidisciplinary attention. Simplification of the antiretroviral regimen might result in a greater response to treatment for hepatitis C.
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Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of mortality in the United States, representing the highest total expenditures among major diseases. To improve CVD-associated outcomes, medication therapy management (MTM) services have been included in essential health benefit packages offered by various health plans. Nevertheless, the impact of such MTM services on outcomes is still unclear, especially from the perspective of the self-insured employer. ⋯ Cardiovascular-related pharmacy, all-cause medical, and total expenditures were statistically lower among beneficiaries who received MTM services compared with those who did not. In addition, MTM services had a positive ROI and demonstrated clinical significances by the increasing number of patients who achieved treatment goals and improved disease stages for hypertension and BMI.