Monday, April 11, 2016

Medication Prices

In class we talked a bit about personal ethnics and how that may affect our choices as a pharmacist. As we work closely with other healthcare professionals, I brought up the ethnics of physicians. I was unaware their profession was undergoing similar ethical controversies. However, in this blog I am going to bring back pharmaceutical and insurance companies. Some people may see many of their choices as unethical.
            My first example would be the story about the kids that bought the HIV medication and increased the price to thousands of dollars. While this is an extreme example, it shows that people can abuse the pharmaceutical industry. We talked in class about drug companies need to recuperate the research and develop of a drug. We have to trust them that they are not unethically setting the prices too high and that people can get these medications if they really need them.
            In addition to that, these drug companies are the ones that decide which drugs to produce. When manufacturing a certain drug because too costly, the company can decide to stop producing that product. This in turn reduces competition. With fewer competitors in the market, prices tend to rise. Again, we have to have faith these companies will not take advantage of these circumstances. We have to believe they will still set the attainable prices for the patients.
            Insurance companies can either contribute or remove some of the price barriers of medications. They have their formularies with their set copays. Insurance companies have rules the patient must follow or they could have serious, usually financial, consequences. If a patient’s medications fall under those covered by insurance, that barrier is reduced or even removed. However, if it is not, then the patient has to jump through hoops to try to get it approved. And the insurance company still has the ability to deny the request to get it covered. Is it ethical for an insurance company to not cover necessary medication? In other words, is it ethical for them to decide what is medically necessary for a patient? Is it ethically for them to cover only certain medications?

            In general, one of the biggest problems I see in America’s healthcare system is how price can dictate care. My question is how ethical is it to put a price on someone’s health? All healthcare providers are guilty of contributing to the tremendous prices, pharmacists included. We need to ask ourselves: What are we costing our patients and it is ethical to charge them for these services?  

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