{"id":1464,"date":"2013-04-09T17:32:23","date_gmt":"2013-04-09T20:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nchspressroom.wordpress.com\/?p=1464"},"modified":"2013-04-09T17:32:23","modified_gmt":"2013-04-09T20:32:23","slug":"strategies-used-by-adults-to-reduce-their-prescription-drug-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/2013\/04\/09\/1464\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategies Used by Adults to Reduce Their Prescription Drug Costs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, Americans spent $45 billion out-of-pocket on retail prescription\u00a0drugs. Some adults reduce prescription drug costs by skipping doses and\u00a0delaying filling prescriptions; however, some cost-reduction strategies used by adults\u00a0have been associated with negative health outcomes. For example, adults who\u00a0do not take prescription medication as prescribed have been shown to have\u00a0poorer health status and increased emergency room use, hospitalizations, and\u00a0cardiovascular events<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/nchspressroom.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/13548_lores.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1471\" alt=\"Turned on its side, this uncapped amber medication bottle had releasing its contents of an unknown cache of white, oval-shaped tablets.\" src=\"http:\/\/nchspressroom.files.wordpress.com\/2013\/04\/13548_lores.jpg?w=197\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" \/><\/a>A new <a title=\"Strategies Used by Adults to Reduce Their Prescription Drug Costs\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/databriefs\/db119.pdf\">report<\/a> from NCHS\u00a0analyzes different strategies used by\u00a0U.S. adults to reduce their prescription drug costs, by age, health insurance\u00a0status, and poverty status, using data from the 2011 National Health Interview\u00a0Survey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Key findings from the report<\/strong>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Adults aged 18\u201364 and those aged 65 and over were equally likely to have asked their doctor for a lower-cost medication to save money on prescription drugs (19.8% and 20.3%, respectively).<\/li>\n<li>Adults aged 18\u201364 were twice as likely to not have taken medication as prescribed to save money (12.6%) compared with adults aged 65 and over (5.8%).<\/li>\n<li>Among adults aged 18\u201364, uninsured adults (23.1%) were more likely than those with Medicaid (13.6%) or those with private coverage (8.7%) to not have taken medication as prescribed to save money.<\/li>\n<li>Among adults aged 65 and over, those with only Medicare coverage were more likely to ask their doctor for a lower-cost medication to save money (24.9%) compared with those who had private coverage (20.1%) and those with Medicare and Medicaid (14.7%) coverage.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/databriefs\/db119_fig1.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" alt=\"Percentages of adults who used selected strategies to reduce prescription drug costs in the last 12 months, by age: United States, 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/nchs\/data\/databriefs\/db119_fig1.png\" width=\"419\" height=\"271\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011, Americans spent $45 billion out-of-pocket on retail prescription\u00a0drugs. Some adults reduce prescription drug costs by skipping doses and\u00a0delaying filling prescriptions; however, some cost-reduction strategies used by adults\u00a0have been associated with negative health outcomes. For example, adults who\u00a0do not take prescription medication as prescribed have been shown to have\u00a0poorer health status and increased emergency<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":195,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62288,53746],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/195"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1464\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cdc.gov\/nchs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}