ArticleJournal of general internal medicine2011
Use of prescription drug samples and patient assistance programs, and the role of doctor-patient communication.
Article in Journal of general internal medicine, 2011. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 24 citations in OpenAlex.
- Physician-patient communication on cost and affordability in asthma care. Who wants to talk about it and who is actually doing it.Annals of the American Thoracic Society · 2014Trial
- Impact of Cost Conversations During Clinical Encounters Aided by Shared Decision-Making Tools on Medication Adherence.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2022Article
- Impact of Cost Conversation on Decision-Making Outcomes.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Innovations, quality & outcomes · 2021Article
- Patient Assistance Programs and Technology in Medication Adherence.Innovations in pharmacy · 2020Article
- Who Were the Early Adopters of Dabigatran?: An Application of Group-based Trajectory Models.Medical care · 2016Article
- Patient-physician discussions about costs: definitions and impact on cost conversation incidence estimates.BMC health services research · 2016Article
- Use of Prescription Drug Samples in the USA: A Descriptive Study with Considerations for Pharmacoepidemiology.Drug safety · 2016Article
- Pharmaceutical Cost-Saving Strategies and their Association with Medication Adherence in a Medicare Supplement Population.Journal of general internal medicine · 2015Article
- Impact of rural residence on forgoing healthcare after cancer because of cost.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2013Article
- How quickly do physicians adopt new drugs? The case of second-generation antipsychotics.Psychiatric services (Washington, D.C.) · 2013Article
- Treatment differences by health insurance among outpatients with coronary artery disease: insights from the national cardiovascular data registry.Journal of the American College of Cardiology · 2013Article
- Utilization of free medication samples in the United States in a nationally representative sample: 2009-2013.Research in social & administrative pharmacy : RSAPArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundCost-related underuse of medications is common among older adults, who seldom discuss medication costs with their physicians. Some older adults may use free drug samples or industry-sponsored patient assistance programs (PAP) in hopes of lowering out-of-pocket costs, although the long-term effect of these programs on drug spending is unclear.
objectiveTo examine older adults' use of industry-sponsored strategies to reduce out-of-pocket drug costs and the association between doctor-patient communication and use of these programs.
designCross-sectional analysis of a 2006 nationally representative survey of Medicare beneficiaries.
participants14,322 community-dwelling Medicare beneficiaries age ≥65. MAIN MEASURES: We conducted bivariate and multivariate analyses of the association between receipt of free samples and participation in PAPs with sociodemographic characteristics, health status, access to care, drug coverage, medication cost burden, and doctor-patient communication. KEY
results51.4% of seniors reported receiving at least one free sample over the last 12 months and 29.2% reported receiving free samples more than once. In contrast, only 1.3% of seniors reported participating in an industry-sponsored PAP. Higher income respondents were more likely to report free sample receipt than low-income respondents (50.8% vs. 43.8%, p < 0.001) and less likely to report participating in a PAP (0.42% vs. 2.2%, p < 0.001). In multivariate analyses, those who reported talking to their doctor about the cost of their medications had more than twice the odds of receiving samples as those who did not (OR 2.17, 95% CI 1.95-2.42).
conclusionsIn 2006, over half of seniors in Medicare received free samples, but only 1.3% reported receiving any medications from a patient assistance program. Doctor-patient communication is strongly associated with use of these programs, which has important implications for clinical care regardless of whether these programs are viewed as drivers of prescription costs or a remedy for them.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.