Comparison of provincial prescription drug plans and the impact on patients' annual drug expenditures.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Reimbursement for outpatient prescription drugs is not mandated by the Canada Health Act or any other federal legislation. Provincial governments independently establish reimbursement plans. We sought to describe variations in publicly funded provincial drug plans across Canada and to examine the impact of this variation on patients' annual expenditures.

Methods

We collected information, accurate to December 2006, about publicly funded prescription drug plans from all 10 Canadian provinces. Using clinical scenarios, we calculated the impact of provincial cost-sharing strategies on individual annual drug expenditures for 3 categories of patients with different levels of income and 2 levels of annual prescription burden ($260 and $1000).

Results

We found that

SUBMITTER: Demers V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2228358 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature