Good morning and welcome to the middle of the week. Elizabeth Cooney here, filling in for the vacationing Ed Silverman. As Ed would say, you made it this far, so why not carry on? Have some news with your coffee and send along any tips here.
Brand-name combination drugs can be more expensive than the sum of their parts, especially when generic components are available, JAMA explains. An analysis of Medicare Part D spending estimates Medicare could have saved $925 million in 2016 for the same number of doses if generic rather than brand-name components had been used in combination drugs. The solution? Dr. Chana Sacks of Harvard Medical School and co-authors recommend prescriber education and more rational substitution policies to promote generic substitution as well as therapeutic interchange to save money in the Medicare drug benefit program.
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