Medication Nonadherence in Diabetes Longitudinal effects on costs and potential cost savings from improvement

Care.diabetesjournals.org: August 21, 2012

OBJECTIVE To examine the longitudinal effects of medication nonadherence (MNA) on key costs and estimate potential savings from increased adherence using a novel methodology that accounts for shared correlation among cost categories.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Veterans with type 2 diabetes (740,195) were followed from January 2002 until death, loss to follow-up, or December 2006. A novel multivariate, generalized, linear, mixed modeling approach was used to assess the differential effect of MNA, defined as medication possession ratio (MPR) ≥0.8 on healthcare costs. A sensitivity analysis was performed to assess potential cost savings at different MNA levels using the Consumer Price Index to adjust estimates to 2012 dollar value. Read more