Medication affordability gains following Medicare Part D are eroding among elderly with multiple chronic conditions.

ABSTRACT: Elderly Americans, especially those with multiple chronic conditions, face difficulties paying for prescriptions, which results in worse adherence to and discontinuation of therapy, called cost-related medication nonadherence. Medicare Part D, implemented in January 2006, was supposed to address issues of affordability for prescriptions. We investigated whether the gains in medication affordability attributable to Part D persisted during the six years that followed its implementation. Overall, we found continued incremental improvements in medication affordability in the period 2007-09 that eroded during the period 2009-11. Among elderly beneficiaries with four or more chronic conditions, we observed an increase in the prevalence of cost-related nonadherence from 14.4 percent in 2009 to 17

SUBMITTER: Naci H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4340076 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature