Anytime someone with deep pockets pays the bills, you will have abuse. Most people have no idea how much things actually cost and don’t care if someone else is paying the bill.
The real way to reduce medical costs is to have people pay their own bills. They will do a much better job of scrutinizing this BS than the insurance companies.
So my doctor runs a hormone panel on my middle aged, menopausal butt and finds out that I need a lot of estrogen and a little testosterone and no progesterone. She doesn’t want to give me the synthetic stuff because it’s linked to massive increases in cancer. There is no pill (or combination of pills) that will help me.
She writes me a prescription for a hormone balance that needs to be compounded because it doesn’t exist in Big Pharma.
Now I can’t have it.
My mother was on Armor Thyroid. She can’t take the Synthroid because she had a negative reaction. (She absolutely needs thyroid because hers was destroyed by radiation due to Grave’s disease)
Armor has production issues that takes YEARS to fix. There is no Armor thyroid available.
Her dr writes her a prescription for compounded thyroid to get her through.
Now she can’t have it.
The rise in compounding is a direct result of a need in an aging population. Restricting it is killing the one free market solution to a serious problem.
The military prescription formularies have two standards - the drugs that the active duty folks can get and the drugs that the retirees can get. If you get a drug not on the formulary for your particular status (have to go downtown even if it’s on-hand for active duty)), they will leave you a higher co-pay.
Interesting. I’ve been taking a compound tablet that was labeled as Exforg for the last five years. The information on this drug is as follows:
Exforge is the brand name of an oral blood pressure lowering medication which combines two medications in a film-coated tablet. It contains amlodipine, a dihydropyridine-type calcium channel blocker, and valsartan, an angiotensin II receptor antagonist (ARB or A2RA). The patent is held by Novartis Pharmaceuticals. Novartis markets valsartan as Diovan. The patent expired in September 2012.[1] Pfizer’s patent on amlodipine expired in 2007. Until then, it was marketed as Norvasc.
Now prior to Exforg, I was taking the two component medications. At first Exforg was expensive but now it is sold as a reasonably priced generic. It has been quite effective and a part of a treatment by my nephrologist that has see my kidney function go from a low of 13% to its current 38% to 45%. Needless to say I’m well satisfied with my physician.
Follow the path to the political connections. There are politically connected profiteers at the heart of this.
This political payoff connection is still closely attached to military acquisition.
Make the doctor justify non-generic. If the justification is rejected on review, make the doctor pay the difference. That would cut down on the abuses and kickbacks.