New Study Sheds Light on Why People Don't Pick Up Prescriptions

Every pharmacy has prescriptions ordered but left uncollected. It's a small but growing problem, and now a new study in the Annals of Internal Medicine sheds some light on why this is happening. It turns out cost is the biggest reason. Prescriptions with copayments of $40 to $50 and prescriptions costing more than $50 were 3.40 times and 4.68 times more likely, respectively, to be abandoned than prescriptions with no copayment. The second biggest group of prescription deadbeats was new users of medications, who had a 2.74 times greater probability of abandonment than prevalent users. New users were, perhaps, in denial about needing  the drug. The third category of abandonment was prescriptions sent in electronically, which were, no doubt, forgotten.

Money, denial and abandonment--sounds like the chorus of a country song titled, "The Healthcare Debate, 2010."