Carl Clarke asked:


The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) published a study on the effect prescription drug samples have on Medicare patients. The study found that 48.3 percent of Medicare beneficiaries take advantage of free prescription drug samples, with most saying that they accessed these samples due to cost issues. The study concluded that “Accessing free prescription drug samples is prevalent among many categories of beneficiaries, especially among individuals with cost-related medication non-adherence and poor health status. Policies restricting or prohibiting drug sample distribution may adversely impact access to medications among patients in high-risk groups.” The abstract of this study can be found on NCBI’s Web site: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18365289.

The Web site Reduce Prescription Costs agrees, prescription drug samples is a great way to determine if your body will tolerate the new medication. Often time’s patients don’t know how their body will respond to new medication, so a sample medication is often the best way of seeing if the prescription will work. From the article, “Anytime that you are starting a new prescription medication or changing to a lower costing medication, ask your doctor for samples of the new medication. This is to ensure that you don’t spend a lot of money for a full prescription bottle to find out later that the medication doesn’t work correctly for you.” Read the full article here: http://www.reduceprescriptioncosts.com/prescription_drug_samples.html
Anne Zieger wrote an article for Fierce Healthcare on the proposed ban of drug samples at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. The hospital even suggested suspending the admitting privileges of physicians who break the rules if one was to be enacted. Zieger argues that taking away drug samples could hurt lower income patients would can’t afford the medication. She writes, “It doesn’t seem fair to penalize the poor and struggling middle-income patients who can’t afford co-pays just on principle. As a consumer, I’m all for knowing physicians are unbiased, but the reality is that samples bring some pretty effective drugs to patients who wouldn’t be able to get them otherwise…” Read the full article here: http://www.fiercehealthcare.com/story/time-to-take-on-the-drug-samples-problem/2007-07-06.

 



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