How often does cost enter the prescribing equation?

Almost never, to the relief of Big Pharma:

Tarn and her team taped 185 outpatient appointments with a total of 44 doctors in 1999, at which 243 new drugs were prescribed. Patients asked their physician about the cost of the medications or concerns they had about insurance coverage at just 2% of these encounters, the team reports in the American Journal of Managed Care.

(via a reader tip)

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3. Does e-prescribing save prescription drug costs?
4. ACP: Putting effectiveness into the health care equation: Rational or rationing?
5. The cost of prevention: Bankruptcy
6. Does ePrescribe cost pharmacies money?
7. Are patients who enter hospice care really abandoned by their primary care doctors?

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Tagged as: drugs, patient