E=DRUG: Low-cost generic schemes increase medicines access in the USA
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Dear E-druggers,
While our focus is usually on access to (essential) medicines in middle and low-income countries, there is a recent article in the NEJM on the low-cost generic schemes offered by pharmacy retailers in the USA - where patients can receive a month's supply of selected generic medicines from $4 - $10 per month from selected large retail pharmacy chains.
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1006189 (free access to the full text)
The article is an opinion piece/perspective about increasing access to low-income patients and how this undermines prescribing data that would otherwise be used for evaluating the quality of care. While it does not present evidence as such, the authors do provide a table of the most frequently prescribed medicines for chronic conditions in the USA and their availability in the low-cost access schemes (simvastatin tops the list but is not available through these schemes). It is interesting to see the similarities in the list with essential medicines lists in low-income countries.
Regards
Douglas Ball
CHD consultants, Leiden, The Netherlands
E-mail: BallD@chd-consultants.nl