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Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7712

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

 

Publication type: Journal Article

Fischer MA, Cheng H, Schneeweiss S, Avorn J, Solomon DH.
Prior authorization policies for selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitors in Medicaid: a policy review.
Med Care 2006 Jul; 44:(7):658-63
http://meta.wkhealth.com/pt/pt-core/template-journal/lwwgateway/media/landingpage.htm?an=00005650-200607000-00007


Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Many state Medicaid programs use prior authorization programs to limit spending on cyclooxygenase-2 selective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (coxibs). However, the evidence base for the prior authorization criteria has not been examined previously.

METHODS: We determined whether prior authorization was required for coxibs in state Medicaid programs and collected data on what precise criteria needed to be met for a coxib prescription to be authorized. Prior authorization criteria were compared to clinical evidence regarding which patients are most likely to benefit from coxibs.

RESULTS: By mid-2004, 35 states had implemented prior authorization requirements for coxibs. Of 5 major clinical factors that identify patients likely to benefit from coxibs, 18 states (51%) included all 5 factors and 9 states (26%) included 2 or fewer. Most states (33/35; 94%) required a previous trial of nonselective nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs before a coxib would be authorized. Several prior authorization programs included factors that had no connection to the clinical evidence.

CONCLUSIONS: State Medicaid prior authorization policies for coxibs are heterogeneous in terms both of the criteria required to obtain a coxib and of the relationship of those criteria to clinical evidence. Development of clinically rational prescription drug policies should be a goal for all health insurers and represents an important priority for Medicare’s prescription drug benefit program.

Keywords:
Publication Types: Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S. MeSH Terms: Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal/administration & dosage Cost Control Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors/administration & dosage* Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors/adverse effects Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors/economics Glucocorticoids/administration & dosage Health Policy/economics* Humans Medicaid/economics Medicaid/organization & administration* Polypharmacy Reimbursement Mechanisms/economics Reimbursement Mechanisms/organization & administration* Risk Factors United States Warfarin/administration & dosage Substances: Anti-Inflammatory Agents, Non-Steroidal Cyclooxygenase 2 Inhibitors Glucocorticoids Warfarin

 

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Far too large a section of the treatment of disease is to-day controlled by the big manufacturing pharmacists, who have enslaved us in a plausible pseudo-science...
The blind faith which some men have in medicines illustrates too often the greatest of all human capacities - the capacity for self deception...
Some one will say, Is this all your science has to tell us? Is this the outcome of decades of good clinical work, of patient study of the disease, of anxious trial in such good faith of so many drugs? Give us back the childlike trust of the fathers in antimony and in the lancet rather than this cold nihilism. Not at all! Let us accept the truth, however unpleasant it may be, and with the death rate staring us in the face, let us not be deceived with vain fancies...
we need a stern, iconoclastic spirit which leads, not to nihilism, but to an active skepticism - not the passive skepticism, born of despair, but the active skepticism born of a knowledge that recognizes its limitations and knows full well that only in this attitude of mind can true progress be made.
- William Osler 1909