December 2009

Rates of outpatient antibiotic prescribing vary widely between US commercial health plans. High-utilizing health plans may improve quality and lower costs by reducing unnecessary antibiotic use.

Small increases and decreases in pharmacy copayments have little influence on patients’ switching to generic drugs or on improving adherence to medication regimens.

Using data from the New York SCHIP program, this study showed that plan disenrollment was not significantly associated with managed care plan quality.

Florida managed care plans observe insufficient outcomes by contracted cardiac surgeons to reliably distinguish quality. Pooling data across insurers or using society data may help.

This study evaluates the feasibility of using claims data to evaluate risk factors for prescription opioid abuse among patients in a privately insured population.

Antihypertensive medication adherence was associated with improvement in certain short-term utilization measures among employees with high prior medical costs.

A policy allowing prescribers to write prior authorization criteria directly on the prescription led to decreased gaps in therapy without diminishing drug cost savings.

This article summarizes the outcomes from a pilot online curriculum on off-label prescribing, appraising pharmaceutical information, and talking with patients about advertised medications.