Prescription medication costs - A study of physician familiarity

Background: Studies in the past 25 years have suggested that physicians are not familiar with the costs of common prescription medications. Objectives: To determine physician familiarity with the cost of common pres cription medications and to determine the value physicians place on knowing information regarding the cost of medications. Design: Survey. Setting: Seven community-based family medicine residency teaching clinics i n Iowa. Participants: Two hundred five practicing resident and faculty physicians. Interventions: From a series of $10 price intervals (range, $0.01-$80.00), physicians were asked to select the interval containing the cash price of t he medication to an uninsured patient for 50 medications commonly prescribe d in outpatient family medicine clinics. Physicians were also questioned ab out the value of medication cost information to their practice. Main Outcome Measures: The percentage of correct responses and the mean pri cing scores were calculated for each respondent and for all medications. Results: One hundred seventy-eight physicians responded (86.8%). Only 22.9% of the responses correctly identified the cost of the medication. More tha n two thirds (68.3%) of the responses underestimated the correct price inte rval. Branded drugs were underestimated in 89.9% of responses, while generi c drugs were overestimated in 90.2% of responses. Overall, 64.4% of physici ans believed they did not receive sufficient information in their practices regarding prescription drug costs, and nearly all (93.6%) reported that re gular information on prescription medication costs would help them prescrib e more cost-effectively. Conclusions: Physicians are unfamiliar with the costs of medications they c ommonly prescribe, and they report that regular access to information on pr escription medication costs would help them prescribe more cost-effectively .