By: Hayden Bosworth, Professor, Duke University Medical Center; and Sloane Salzburg, executive director, Prescriptions for a Healthy America June 12, 2017
For all the dizzying talk of repeal versus repair, one of the greatest cost drivers in healthcare is still hiding in plain sight. It’s called medication nonadherence: the simple fact that people often don’t take their medicines as prescribed.
Medications cost the healthcare system approximately $325 billion annually, and research indicates that suboptimal medication use—including taking too much or not taking enough—leads to avoidable annual healthcare costs totaling $300 billion. People who don’t take their medicines are more likely to end up back in the hospital or in the emergency room than those who do. Read more here.