On Friday President Trump unveiled is new plan to reduce drug prices.
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The new plan, called “American Patients First” contains a bunch of new policy ideas, however there is no specific implantation date at this time. The purpose of this new plan is to reduce drug prices and make them more affordable for the American people.
Here are the major points the program intends to implement in order to reduce drug prices:
- Allow more generic drugs to be competitors to name brand drugs. Generics have a lower cost associated with them, therefore it would give patients the option to use generics and save money.
- Requiring prescription drug commercials to contain the price of the drug. This may be incentive for companies to keep their prices down since it is plastered all over television.
- Reduce the 180-day generic launch time frame. Allowing generics to hit the market sooner would reduce drug prices.
- Passing drug rebates directly on to the patient, instead of using them to lower all other policyholders premiums. This would encourage companies to use more rebates.
- Implementing a bulk purchasing program for Medicare. This would mean that Medicare and purchase prescription drugs in bulk therefore cutting costs and being able to lower the cost associated to patients.
For many patients this will be a huge help in terms of finances as well as patient compliance. Sadly, due to the high costs of prescription drugs, many patients, particularly the elderly, are forced to go without in order to be able to afford their medication. Do you think this would be helpful to your patients? Would their compliance improve if prescription drugs were more affordable?
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