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Step Therapy
Step therapy, also called step protocol or a fail first requirement, is a managed care approach to prescription. It is a type of prior authorization requirement that is intended to control the costs and risks posed by prescription drugs. The practice begins medication for a medical condition with the most cost-effective drug therapy and progresses to other more costly or risky therapies only if necessary. The increase in prescription drug prices in the United States has increased the pressure on health care providers to keep down the cost of prescription medication while maintaining high levels of availability to the patient. The use of generic drugs whenever possible allows health care plans to pursue both goals effectively. Physicians and managed care providers may disagree on the proper step therapy, and patients are encouraged to become knowledgeable in managing their own care. Opponents Opponents of step therapy, such as Fail First Hurts, have detailed the pitfalls of step ...
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Prescription Drug Prices In The United States
Prescription drug list prices in the United States continually rank among the highest in the world. The high cost of prescription drugs became a major topic of discussion in the 21st century, leading up to the American health care reform debate of 2009, and received renewed attention in 2015. One major reason for high prescription drug prices in the United States relative to other countries is the inability of government-granted monopolies in the American health care sector to use their bargaining power to negotiate lower prices and that the American payer ends up subsidizing the world's R&D spending on drugs. According to a comprehensive 2021 review of the existing literature, the United States had higher prescription drug prices than all 32 comparison countries. The United States had 256% higher prescription drug prices than the comparison countries. History Pharmaceutical drugs are the only major health care service in which the producer is able to set prices with littl ...
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Prescription Drug Prices In The United States
Prescription drug list prices in the United States continually rank among the highest in the world. The high cost of prescription drugs became a major topic of discussion in the 21st century, leading up to the American health care reform debate of 2009, and received renewed attention in 2015. One major reason for high prescription drug prices in the United States relative to other countries is the inability of government-granted monopolies in the American health care sector to use their bargaining power to negotiate lower prices and that the American payer ends up subsidizing the world's R&D spending on drugs. According to a comprehensive 2021 review of the existing literature, the United States had higher prescription drug prices than all 32 comparison countries. The United States had 256% higher prescription drug prices than the comparison countries. History Pharmaceutical drugs are the only major health care service in which the producer is able to set prices with littl ...
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Managed Care
The term managed care or managed healthcare is used in the United States to describe a group of activities intended to reduce the cost of providing health care and providing American health insurance while improving the quality of that care ("managed care techniques"). It has become the predominant system of delivering and receiving American health care since its implementation in the early 1980s, and has been largely unaffected by the Affordable Care Act of 2010. ...intended to reduce unnecessary health care costs through a variety of mechanisms, including: economic incentives for physicians and patients to select less costly forms of care; programs for reviewing the medical necessity of specific services; increased beneficiary cost sharing; controls on inpatient admissions and lengths of stay; the establishment of cost-sharing incentives for outpatient surgery; selective contracting with health care providers; and the intensive management of high-cost health care cases. The p ...
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Medical Prescription
A prescription, often abbreviated or Rx, is a formal communication from a physician or other registered health-care professional to a pharmacist, authorizing them to dispense a specific prescription drug for a specific patient. Historically, it was a physician's instruction to an apothecary listing the materials to be compounded into a treatmentthe symbol ℞ (a capital letter R, crossed to indicate abbreviation) comes from the first word of a medieval prescription, la, Recipere (), that gave the list of the materials to be compounded. Format and definition For a communication to be accepted as a legal medical prescription, it needs to be filed by a qualified dentist, advanced practice nurse, physician or veterinarian, for whom the medication prescribed is within their scope of practice to prescribe. This is regardless of whether the prescription includes prescription drugs, controlled substances or over-the-counter treatments. Prescriptions may be entered into an e ...
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Prior Authorization
Prior authorization is a utilization management process used by some health insurance companies in the United States to determine if they will cover a prescribed procedure, service, or medication. The process is intended to act as a safety and cost-saving measure although it has received criticism from physicians for being costly and time-consuming. Overview Prior authorization is a check run by some insurance companies or third-party payers in the United States before they will agree to cover certain prescribed medications or medical procedures. There are a number of reasons that insurance providers require prior authorization, including age, medical necessity, the availability of a generic alternative, or checking for drug interactions. A failed authorization can result in a requested service being denied or in an insurance company requiring the patient to go through a separate process known as "step therapy" or "fail first." Step therapy dictates that a patient must first ...
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Prescription Drug
A prescription drug (also prescription medication or prescription medicine) is a pharmaceutical drug that legally requires a medical prescription to be dispensed. In contrast, over-the-counter drugs can be obtained without a prescription. The reason for this difference in substance control is the potential scope of misuse, from drug abuse to practicing medicine without a license and without sufficient education. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what constitutes a prescription drug. In North America, ℞, usually printed as "Rx", is used as an abbreviation of the word "prescription". It is a contraction of the Latin word "''recipe''" (an imperative form of "recipere") meaning "take". Prescription drugs are often dispensed together with a monograph (in Europe, a Patient Information Leaflet or PIL) that gives detailed information about the drug. The use of prescription drugs has been increasing since the 1960s. Regulation Australia In Australia, the Stan ...
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Medication
A medication (also called medicament, medicine, pharmaceutical drug, medicinal drug or simply drug) is a drug used to diagnose, cure, treat, or prevent disease. Drug therapy ( pharmacotherapy) is an important part of the medical field and relies on the science of pharmacology for continual advancement and on pharmacy for appropriate management. Drugs are classified in multiple ways. One of the key divisions is by level of control, which distinguishes prescription drugs (those that a pharmacist dispenses only on the order of a physician, physician assistant, or qualified nurse) from over-the-counter drugs (those that consumers can order for themselves). Another key distinction is between traditional small molecule drugs, usually derived from chemical synthesis, and biopharmaceuticals, which include recombinant proteins, vaccines, blood products used therapeutically (such as IVIG), gene therapy, monoclonal antibodies and cell therapy (for instance, stem cell th ...
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Generic Drugs
A generic drug is a pharmaceutical drug that contains the same chemical substance as a drug that was originally protected by chemical patents. Generic drugs are allowed for sale after the patents on the original drugs expire. Because the active chemical substance is the same, the medical profile of generics is equivalent in performance. A generic drug has the same active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) as the original, but it may differ in some characteristics such as the manufacturing process, formulation, excipients, color, taste, and packaging. Although they may not be associated with a particular company, generic drugs are usually subject to government regulations in the countries in which they are dispensed. They are labeled with the name of the manufacturer and a generic non-proprietary name such as the United States Adopted Name (USAN) or International Nonproprietary Name (INN) of the drug. A generic drug must contain the same active ingredients as the original brand-nam ...
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Health Care In The United States
The United States far outspends any other nation on health care, measured both in ''per capita'' spending and as a percentage of GDP. Despite this, the country has significantly worse healthcare outcomes when compared to peer nations. The United States is the only developed nation without a system of universal health care, with a large proportion of its population not carrying health insurance, a substantial factor in the country's excess mortality. Healthcare is provided by many distinct organizations, made up of insurance companies, healthcare providers, hospital systems, and independent providers. Health care facilities are largely owned and operated by private sector businesses. 58% of community hospitals in the United States are non-profit, 21% are government-owned, and 21% are for-profit. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent $9,403 on health care per capita, and 17.9% on health care as percentage of its GDP in 2014. Healthcare ...
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Prescription Drug
A prescription drug (also prescription medication or prescription medicine) is a pharmaceutical drug that legally requires a medical prescription to be dispensed. In contrast, over-the-counter drugs can be obtained without a prescription. The reason for this difference in substance control is the potential scope of misuse, from drug abuse to practicing medicine without a license and without sufficient education. Different jurisdictions have different definitions of what constitutes a prescription drug. In North America, ℞, usually printed as "Rx", is used as an abbreviation of the word "prescription". It is a contraction of the Latin word "''recipe''" (an imperative form of "recipere") meaning "take". Prescription drugs are often dispensed together with a monograph (in Europe, a Patient Information Leaflet or PIL) that gives detailed information about the drug. The use of prescription drugs has been increasing since the 1960s. Regulation Australia In Australia, the Stan ...
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Journal Of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy
The ''Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering all aspects of managed care pharmacy. It was established in 1995 and is published by the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy. The editor-in-chief is Laura E. Happe. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2014 impact factor The impact factor (IF) or journal impact factor (JIF) of an academic journal is a scientometric index calculated by Clarivate that reflects the yearly mean number of citations of articles published in the last two years in a given journal, as ... of 2.713. References External links * Pharmacy in the United States Pharmacology journals English-language journals Publications established in 1995 Monthly journals {{Pharmacology-journal-stub ...
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Health Insurance
Health insurance or medical insurance (also known as medical aid in South Africa) is a type of insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses. As with other types of insurance, risk is shared among many individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health risk and health system expenses over the risk pool, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to provide the money to pay for the health care benefits specified in the insurance agreement. The benefit is administered by a central organization, such as a government agency, private business, or not-for-profit entity. According to the Health Insurance Association of America, health insurance is defined as "coverage that provides for the payments of benefits as a result of sickness or injury. It includes insurance for losses from accident, medical expense, disability, or accidental death and dismemberment". Background A healt ...
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