With diabetes drugs, the timeliness of refills increased from 76% to 77% among people who switched to narrow networks, while staying around 80% for individuals who didn’t switch.
People who transitioned to narrow networks got timely refills of antidepressants 70% of the time in 2012 and 72% of the time in 2013, while timely refills increased from about 73% to 74% among individuals who didn’t switch.
One shortcoming of the study is that people in the plans that didn’t switch to narrow networks filled prescriptions more regularly at the start of the study, leaving less room for improvement, the authors acknowledge Sept. 8 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
They also note that they didn’t explore clinical differences among patients that might help explain the changes in rates of adherence.
It’s possible that the narrow network plans available through CVS may not get the same results as drug benefits available elsewhere, Jack Hoadley, of the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, noted in an accompanying editorial.
“The small gains found in adherence may be associated with more affordable co-payments, but we don’t know from the study what difference there was in co-payments,” Hoadley said by email.
“Many factors are associated with whether people fill prescriptions and take their medications, including the presence of side effects or how many drugs they are prescribed in total,” he added.
