Medication Compliance

Boston Globe: Physicians should help patients maintain medication regimens.
The Boston Globe (12/3) editorializes, "Patients who don't take their medications are a well-documented problem in medicine. If doctors are to spot patients who might stop complying with prescriptions, it's vital to have a fuller understanding of why and how it happens." A new study "in the Annals of Internal Medicine, by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, shines the spotlight on another contributor: Patients not picking up prescriptions that have already been filled." And "not surprisingly, prescriptions with $40 to $50 co-pays were the most likely to be abandoned." The Globe concludes, "Doctors are unlikely to know their patients' co-pays for drugs, but taking the time to talk about drug costs would help them identify those who might never pick up their prescriptions," which could cut costs and save lives.