More drugs do not always mean better care: studies

[greg10]

I think most of us dealing with dialysis know this already, that more drugs and spending more on drugs often don't make for better outcome for the patients.

Thu, Nov 4 2010

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Spending more on drugs does not always translate into healthier patients, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday.

And in a second study, researchers found that when government insurers crack down on payments for certain drugs, doctors are less likely to prescribe them unnecessarily.

The two studies, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that government regulations and perhaps healthcare reform can be used to cut costs and improve care.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6A27SO20101104

The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 changed policies for how doctors get paid for injected drugs, including this one.

Shahinian and his colleagues looked at data from 54,925 men treated for prostate cancer from 2003 to 2005. During that time, reimbursements for hormone therapy fell from $356 to $176 per dose.

"The rate of inappropriate use of androgen deprivation therapy declined substantially during the study period, from 38.7 percent in 2003 ... to 25.7 percent in 2005," they wrote.