Cost of diabetes treatment has doubled in 6 years. Is anyone surprised?
Research out of Stanford USOM indicates that the total money spent on diabetes care went from $6.7bn in 2001 to $12.5bn in 2007. I can't say I'm terribly surprised. Every time you turn around, someone's hammering the dangers of monotherapy down your throat, especially when a comorbidity is present. (When isn't there one?)
However, I am pleased to see that the Stanford researchers are interested in how much of this extra cost is due to costly new medications that may or may not be worth their price — a topic too rarely discussed in the Ivory Towers of academia. They cite Januvia and Byetta as potential cost centers, but I can't help but think that they're missing the mark just a little bit. In outpatient diabetes management — and I'm going to assume that institutions and hospitals are similar — Byetta and Januvia, while successful, aren't what I would consider blockbusters. They aren't super mainstream yet.
In terms of quantity and price, the TZDs — particularly Actos, since Avandia got thrown under the bus — are far more costly. Yeah, incretins, whether direct or indirect are the new CME hotness with the associated mindshare, but compared to your TZDs, biguanides, and sulfonylureas, they're a distant a second/third/fourth fiddle in volume, if not cost.
Drug companies market these new drugs with claims of greater convenience and better control of blood sugar levels, and physicians have increasingly used them as alternatives to injected insulin, Alexander said. Insulin use has correspondingly dropped from 38 percent of treatment visits in 1994 to 28 percent in 2007.
This particular sentence bugs me because the implication is that insulin is cheaper than most oral medications. This just isn't true, particularly with the modified human insulins that can be very costly indeed. At the very least, they're on par with the cost of oral meds, and let's not forget that most people with T2DM would prefer not to stick themselves with a needle, no matter how small.
Talk of direct costs aside, it is obvious that $1 spent in the name of public health has a greater marginal utility than $1 spent on a medical intervention — be that drug therapy, a procedure, or whatever. Ben Franklin was right, after all. Unfortunately, the long-run cost savings of public health programs are notoriously difficult to measure, and certainly nowhere near as sexy as a medical intervention. Perhaps that's why public health gets shortchanged? I've spent some idle moments wondering how much money we could save if we spent a third or even a quarter as much combating things like poor nutrition and obesity as we do on direct healthcare itself.
It seems like the bulk of the money spent on prescription drugs is spent to offset the poor lifestyle choices that we Americans like to make. Unfortunately we pay dearly for that privilege. Any sort of nationalized healthcare will have to take this God-given right tendency into account.
Best lab ever? Possibly.
The folks at the Temple U SOP are doing some interesting stuff in one of their pharmacy labs with a focus on Coumadin:
"Prescribing this medicine is like trial and error in finding the right dosage that works best for you," says Krynetskiy. "Five milligrams is a typical dose, but a little less or a little more could have dramatic consequences or no benefit at all."
Doctors call this optimal dosage the therapeutic window, and Krynetskiy is trying to find it through pharmacogenomics, the study of a person's response to drugs based on their genetic makeup. It's a collaboration that crosses campuses and includes Krynetskiy and fellow clinical faculty at the School of Pharmacy, clinicians at Temple University Hospital and Jeannes Hospital. The researchers are studying why people process the same drug differently. In this case, they're trying to find the correlation between genotypes, or a person's inner code of DNA, and the correct dosage of Warfarin. By collecting saliva samples and extracting DNA from 77 participants already on the drug, the researchers can look for variances, genetic clues, which make people metabolize the same drug in very different ways.
Sounds more like a fun lab experiment than something that'll be clinically valuable for something as cheap as warfarin. This might be more interesting in terms of cost-benefit by choosing a drug that's both expensive and has a narrow therapeutic index. Aminoglycosides, some cancer drugs, and then there's always the iatrogenic narrowing of therapeutic windows — especially via the P450 isoenzyme — that might benefit from this kind of relatively blunt pharmacogenomic hashing. At the very least, some interesting and possibly useful trends might be established.
Warfarin, as cheap as it is, probably isn't a bad place to start. At the very least, I bet it makes for an awesome lab — we never did anything nearly as cool when I was in school…
Update from Eric:
It's not the cost of the drug – it's the cost of the 29% of Warfarin users that are hospitalized in the first year due to a drug-related adverse event.
If this is indeed the case, then preventing just one hospitalization could pay for dozens, and possibly hundreds of these tests, not to mention the impact on human and opportunity costs associated with hospitalization and ADEs.
On panic disorder and benzodiazepine use
I'm taking a class just for fun right now — psychopharmacology — and the discussions that crop up are quite excellent. Many of the students are prescribers in my area, and I fill their scripts on a regular basis. It makes for an interesting, voyeuristic look into their thought processes given some of the case studies. That is, I know who they are, but they don't know who I am…
This week's topic is panic disorder and relapse in patients with and without a history of substance abuse. Fun topic, really, and one close to my heart.
Case study:
[You are] working with a 32 year old man who comes to you for an evaluation of panic in August in Lowell. He meets the diagnostic criteria for panic disorder and has been experiencing untriggered episodes for the last 2 months. Name three factors that would guide your selection of medication and then discuss your pharmacologic plan for this unfortunate man.
One of the responses — by a prescriber in my area — was to encourage deep breathing, progressive relaxation, identifying triggers and avoiding the situation, CBT, and starting an SSRI. If panic continues, start a benzo.
This strikes me as fairly typical approach for a primary care provider in dealing with someone who presents during an acute panic attack, but I think that it's doing the patient a disservice. Perhaps it's also a typical response for a psychiatrist who is afraid to use benzodiazepines.
I'll post my response here, verbatim, because I think there's a deep (and common) misunderstanding of what panic is, and what having a panic attack is like.
It seems like you're thinking of panic as something that can be gotten out of, as though it's a normal fight-or-flight type response where removal from a stressful stimulus means no more panic.
This is dangerous thinking, and forgive me if I've read you wrong.
It can be harder than perhaps some practitioners think to identify a trigger. While triggers can often be identified, I think it's important to note that when a patient first presents, and you make a diagnosis of panic disorder, discovering these triggers will be more complex than simply avoiding a stressful situation, or simplifying and eliminating stressors from one's life. (Which is a very time-consuming process.)
You can't turn the ship on a dime.
Please don't fall victim to the idea that because you've been scared out of your wits a few times and your heartrate went up and your BP went through the roof that that is a panic attack. It's not. Panic attacks usually appear in a completely idiopathic manner, particularly the first time they hit. It's not an "Oh Gee, you scared me," type of thing, it's more of a "DEAR GOD I'M DYING, SOMEONE PLEASE DIAL 911" type of thing.* (The caps are appropriate there.
)
Panic attacks can, and do hit without any warning in an otherwise comfortable, relaxed setting. Watching a movie in your living room, for example.
It's not like [situation] -> panic attack a few minutes or an hour later with a clear antagonist. It can come days after the stressors. It can also take a few weeks and lots of practice to build up an arsenal of effective coping mechanisms to return oneself to a calming state in the middle of an active attack.
Re: Deep breathing. This can also be problematic as at the point where one's lungs are fully inflated one can experience a PVC or PAC, which is VERY disconcerting to someone who's already acutely aware of what their heart is doing. I can actually trigger PVCs in myself by doing this.
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I don't mean to lecture. I'm not the professor, and perhaps I've read too much between the lines of what you've written. As someone who didn't get out of bed for 3 weeks the first time I had a panic attack, I feel very strongly about the issue, and combatting it aggressively rather than taking a more laid back, it'll-fix-itself approach. Particularly this: "deep breathing, progressive relaxation, identifying triggers and avoiding the situation, CBT, [etc.]"
Those are all great long-term approaches, but the short-term is what someone with panic disorder in an active phase cares about most. Long term stuff can come after, just get me through right now.
And I am keenly aware that my personal experience should never cloud my clinical judgement inasmuch as that is humanly possible.
* I tried to dial 911 my first time, in the middle of a biochemistry lecture, no less. But I couldn't see well enough to dial the number. In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I'm glad I couldn't because that would have been a misuse of medical resources. :p
Early in panic, people are usually not capable of accessing the skills to use behavioral coping mechanisms. You usually need to halt the panic quickly and this is where BZDs are needed. Panic is such an uncomfortable and painful experience, the BZD's are in a way like pain medications in the early stages of treatment.
Drug advice from Consumers' Reports
This is going to be quick and dirty because I've got some other things to do, but I've been putting it off far longer than I've meant to. (No time like the present, right?) In the January 2008 issue, CR ran a feature on how people could save money on prescriptions meds. Generally speaking, I am in favor of this kind of thing. I like people to know the alternatives, and how they can save money.
Generally-speaking, it's not a good idea to have word-choice errors in a piece that's supposed to be professional. (See image.) Maybe they should get a medically-trained copy editor and add them to the list of peer-reviewers. Ridiculous.
I've re-created the table they have:
I'll go through it quickly:
Zyrtec is now available OTC, and is comparable to the cost of Claritin. Claritin doesn't work for a goodly number of folks, so Zyrtec is a better option. Zyrtec went OTC the month after this was published — and it wasn't a big secret that it was going to happen.
For ADHD, Strattera is not a popular option. It doesn't work for many people, and ADHD people have a hard time remembering to take their meds consistently, which makes this option less desirable, particularly where it takes a little while for Strattera to begin working. I'm surprised this drug was listed at all, as it's rarely a first-line choice for ADHD spectrum disorders. Even comparing atomoxetine (an NRI) to methylphenidate (a stimulant) is a bit… off, and IMO, does the consumer no favors. Strattera is usually used where someone is at risk for drug abuse or has comorbidities like hypertension or anxiety (iatrogenic or otherwise) and so cannot tolerate stimulants.
Depression… don't have much to say there. Fluoxetine tends to be more stimulating than Lexapro, and there are other subtle differences (half-life, solubility, etc.), but for most people, switching from one to the other is probably not impossible.
As for Diabetes… well. Using a biguanide is usually the first step in treating metabolic syndrome, and then you add other meds on top of that. I'd be skeptical of any doctor who used Actos before using metformin without a given reason. Diabetes treatment tends to go in stepwise fashion like most other chronic illnesses. Removing a TZD from a pre-existing diabetic regimen can be done, but it's not as simple (or desirable) as this little blurb makes it seem. And a TZD isn't normally used as monotherapy. Frankly, I think suggesting Glucotrol rather than metformin would have made more therapeutic sense. And in terms of good use of space, I think think they would have been better going after the ARBs and hypertension in general here.
Heartburn and GERD? Nexium 20mg? Who even uses the 20mg strength Nexium? I see it maybe 3 times a year. They should have done 40mg Nexium and suggested 40mg of Prilosec. (Hilarious sidenote: 40mg Prilosec caps (the one without a generic) cost ~$60 more than 40mg Nexium caps.) Generally, though, this one wasn't too bad.
Insomnia: Eh, probably okay I guess. Insomnia is a poorly-treated condition in this country, and frankly, I'd rather see other methods explored before reaching for the BZRAs at all. But the BZRAs are the easiest, and they keep patients happy. Unfortunately, not enough time is spent diagnosing the underlying causes of insomnia, resulting in a poorly quality of life. There are differences in the polysomnograms of patients on eszopiclone and zolpidem, too, which are not talked about. I'd rather see ramelteon tried before any BZRA, and also see a psychologist about diagnosing an underlying cause for the insomnia in the first place, if a primary care provider cannot take the time (due to financial considerations) to do it themselves. And 5mg of Ambien might help with sleep induction, but the relatively short half-life will do next to nothing for those with sleep maintenance problems.
I'd rather have seen trazodone suggested, since insomnia is usually secondary to some kind of other psychiatric disturbance — a type of uni- or bipolar depression.
Not much to say about arthritis, but I hardly ever see Celebrex used anymore. Now that it stands alone as a COX-2 inhibitor, it's also the most expensive anti-inflammatory in the book and insurers are loathe to use it. I'd rather see diclofenac recommended over ibuprofen, and suggesting that 400mg of ibuprofen daily is anywhere near equivalent to 200mg of celecoxib is laughable.
Schizophrenia. SCHIZO-FREAKIN-PHRENIA? CR is going to tackle SCHIZOPHRENIA in an article about how to save money?!?! I am having difficulty wrapping my brain around that one.
But okay, here goes. Schizophreniform disorders should be managed by a psychiatrist or psychiatric NP, IMNSHO. Diagnosis is tricky, and management is always tricky. All that said… while first generation antipsychotics are often as effective as their second gen counterparts, I am extremely leery of merely saying that Y could be substituted for X. At least CR has the good grace to state "The antipsychotics have major side effects and response to them is highly variable" — AKA "Take our advice with a monster grain of salt." Not the least of the worries are akathisia, tardive dyskinesia, other extrapyramidal symptoms, weight gain, and about a bazillion other possible side effects. My mind is still boggled that they even went there.
Curiously, however, discontinuation rates of perphenazine in schizophrenic patients are lower than with any second gen antipsychotic save olanzapine (Zyprexa) — though people tended to d/c Zyprexa due to its metabolic effects and weight gain, and perphenazine for its extrapyramidal symptoms. Something to consider, I suppose.
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All things considered, it's nice to see the mainstream media promoting saving money on drugs, but it bugs me that they did it in the way that they did.
How much does Nexium cost someone on Medicare Part D?
One of my people — we'll call her Jane — takes two drugs. A generic SSRI, and Nexium. While sorting through the options available to her, and running two scenarios, I discovered just how much Nexium costs her per year. More specifically, how much money she will save by switching from 40mg of Nexium to 2×20mg omeprazole capsules.
$594 per year.
I asked Jane if she'd ever taken anything before the Nexium, because it looked to me like she started it in early 2006, and she told me that she hadn't. The doctor had given her samples, and then a prescription, and she'd been taking it ever since.
Here's the thing: Nexium isn't better than Prilosec. Yes, we all know it's the isolated, active enantiomer of omeprazole, and its time to acid drop is a bit better, and "studies" (paid for by AstraZeneca) have shown that Nexium beats Prilosec in squashing acid production.
Except that it doesn't, because if you look at the fine print, you'll see that those glossy, purty brochures that the big-titted drug reps bring you compare 40mg Nexium to 20mg Prilosec. In fact, when AZ did studies comparing 40mg to 40mg, they discovered that the difference was inconsequential, so they didn't include those results in their marketing materials. (My source for this is a former sales manager for AZ who used to have Nexium as a drug, and then went on to be a regional drug rep manager. He's with Forest now.)
Pretty slick. And underhanded.
Oh, and time to acid drop isn't a particularly important metric, by the way, because PPIs are maintenance meds, not Tums. And Nexium was only something like 2% better than Prilosec for the 8% of the study participants that even showed a difference. Whoopty-do. Clinically significant? Not especially.
Back to saving money. By changing from Nexium to Prilosec, Jane is able to pick a different Part D plan that has a lower premium, not to mention that when she comes to the pharmacy, her copayment will be lower, too. So Jane will be switching. And she could probably eke out a few more dollars in savings if she tried just 20mg omeprazole daily, but I thought I'd be generous by allowing for a non-standard dose in my calculations so her doctor would feel better about switching.
There is a tiny, tiny percentage of people — less than 1 in 100 — that do not respond to omeprazole that do respond to esomeprazole. No one knows why this is, and simply changing from one to the other results in marked improvement. That is no excuse for reaching right for the Nexium over the omeprazole, because sometimes the reverse is true: omeprazole works when esomeprazole does not. Sometimes neither of them work and you need to pick a different drug altogether. This phenomenon is true across all drug classes, and is another reason that having an inflexible, national formulary is a BAD idea.
[tags]healthcare, inefficiency[/tags]
Keep up if you can, Jay Parkinson
Jay Parkinson has a nifty section of his blog where he details the money he has saved his patients. The timeframe spans one month (October). His total is $9,672. Pretty nice; I'll be watching to see what else you do.
I can speak for pharmacists, technicians, and patients when I say that its really, really nice to see a doctor doing the research to find out how much drugs actually cost. I see so much healthcare inefficiency on a daily basis just as it relates to drug therapy, it makes me want to start knocking heads together. Prescribers going right for the Nexium or Prevacid without EVER trying omeprazole; Lipitor when simvastatin is just as effective and has never been tried; Lescol XL, when pravastatin has never been tried; Avodart when finasteride has never been tried. Right for the ARB when an ACEi has never been tried.
Look, I don't give a fuck what your pet drug is. I don't give a damn what the drug rep shoves under your nose on a weekly basis. I don't care that you're unaware of the top-of-mind marketing that's being used on you without your knowledge or consent.
If it's going to cost an elderly person on a fixed income an extra $594/year because you "like it better", you need an ass-kicking.
And so on. I'm all for moving from one drug to another if a less expensive drug has been tried and has failed. That makes sense. But the absolute waste of money because less expensive alternatives have never been tried boggles my mind. I can truly understand why prior authorizations were invented, even if I curse them daily for wasting minutes of my precious time.
Back to the topic at hand: this time of year, people make appointments to see me, where we sit down(!), chat, review medications, and then we talk about what can be done for 2008. Most people that see me are happy with their drug therapy, except for one thing: it costs too much. The goal of their visit is to reduce the cost of their drug therapy for 2008, every single time. Without fail.
I have seen 7 people across two days. (An average appointment lasts about 45 minutes.) In that time, I have saved patients $11,831. That's an average inefficiency of ~$1700 per person. And these are people with drug coverage. The single highest total for one person was ~$3600/year.
In the next couple of days, I'll try to share some scenarios so you can see how much just one simple switch can save an average person.
Keep up the good work, Jay. Seriously. Pharmacists, technicians, and patients everywhere applaud your good sense and efforts.
[tags]healthcare, inefficiency[/tags]
Evolution of thought processes
Phone rings. "Hello, may I help you?"
"Hi, I was wondering if I can take an Aleve for my shoulder ache? I also take lisinopril."
7 years ago:
WTF is lisinopril?
Time: instantaneous
6 years ago:
I know how to spell lisinopril!
Time: ~0.5 seconds
5 years ago:
Lisinopril is for blood pressure!
Time: ~1-2 seconds
4 years ago:
Have I seen this before? Yes… I have because Aleve is naproxen sodium, and I've seen people take Naprosyn with lisinopril.
Time: ~2-3 seconds
3 years ago:
Lisinopril is an ACE inhibitor, and I see this combination every day.
"Sure, that's fine."
Time: ~0.75 seconds
2 years ago:
*Visual, mental review of systems, picturing the RAAS pathway and envisioning how naproxen is metabolized to see where and how the two intersect.*
"Sure, that's fine."
Time: ~0.5 seconds or so
Most recently:
How old is she? What's her creatinine clearance? Might she be better off with diclofenac or celecoxib? Eh, it's probably okay on a short-term basis, and it's not a terrible choice, but it's probably not the best choice, either.
"Sure, that's fine."
Time: ~1-2 seconds
What's the next step, I wonder? Quicker processing? Maybe. Deeper comprehension? Hopefully.
This development of thought processes is the difference between these two residents. The ability to take in a situation in its entirety, process it efficiently, while remaining calm and friendly takes time and exposure, and has very little to do with intelligence or any other innate quality.
* Naproxen is considered an unacceptable agent in geriatric patients even though it is used in the elderly pretty regularly. (My grandmother, for instance.) Probably because most internists, orthopods, and others are often not terribly familiar with geropharmacology, which is why geriatrics is its own specialty both in Medicine and Pharmacy.