The controversies of pill splitting

Expect drug companies to adjust pricing as this practice becomes widespread.

Comments

Anonymous
I first noticed a segment of my patient population asking for this consistently several years ago with Viagra. Typically insurances cover only 6 or sometimes 9 pills per 30-day supply, but they’d ask me to write a higher strength and used a pill splitting device to get 12 or 18 “attempts”.
As long as they use an actual pill-splitter (and not a knife) I don’t have a problem with it.
ipanema
That’s good Anon 8:05. For as long as pill splitting is approved by the doctor, then it’s alright. I used to halve one of my hypertension tablets as prescribed by my doctor. Everything went fine. Now, I only have to take one 5mg tablet.
As always, it’s the trade group mumbling over pill splitting. There are only 3 medications that can be split according to the article anyway. Not all meds, though. This won’t hurt business that much.
Anonymous
Is pill splitting the real issue? When my PCP prescribed Lipitor for me, he wrote the prescription for the higher dosage automatically and told me to split them (which really isn’t difficult). The savings was nice but lasted only for one 3-month’s supply…by the next refill, my insurer had put Lipitor into a different tier at a much higher co-pay.
ipanema
To the trade groups, it is. Some doctors are ok with it, insurers benefit from it, patients definitely love it.

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