Fewer fill 'dispense as written' prescriptions - study
March 25, 2011
Reuters
When there was no "dispense as written" label on a new prescription for patients with chronic disease, about 8 percent went unfilled. That compared to close to 12 percent when patients themselves said they didn't want a generic.
Older patients and doctors were both more likely to require that a prescription be filled with brand name drugs.
When the authors scaled the results to the 3.6 billion prescriptions that are filled annually in the United States, Shrank and his colleagues found that patients could save $1.2 billion if doctors did away with "dispense as written" -- and the health system could save $7.7 billion.
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