OBJECTIVE To compare the cost-effectiveness of epoetin alfa (EPO) and darbepoetin alfa (DARB) for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced anemia (CIA), using dosing regimens approved by the FDA (EPO 40,000 U once weekly and DARB 2.25 U once weekly and DARB 2.25 mcg/kg once weekly). METHODS The study compared published results of two double-blind, randomized, phase III trials one utilizing EPO (...

BACKGROUND Little is known about drug cost communications of Medicare Part D beneficiaries with chronic conditions such as diabetes. The purpose of this study is to assess Medicare Part D beneficiaries with diabetes' levels of communication with physicians regarding prescription drug costs; the perceived importance of these communications; levels of prescription drug switching due to cost; and ...

OBJECTIVES (1) To estimate the cost of irrational prescribing, and (2) to compare the effect of three different kinds of user fee on prescribing costs, in rural Nepal. METHODS A controlled before-after study was conducted in 33 government primary health care facilities in rural eastern Nepal during 1992-95. A fee per prescription (covering all drugs in whatever amounts) was regarded as the co...

In oncology, as in other clinical fields, different treatments are often approved for the same therapeutic indication. In many cases, no direct comparisons are available to inform the choice in clinical practice. In 2015, the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (AIOM) instructed a working group, including both clinicians and methodologists, to discuss the issue of the best choice among diff...

Drug therapy accounts for a major portion of health expenditure. A useful strategy for achieving cost efficient healthcare is drug utilisation research as it forms the basis for making amendments in drug policies and helps in rational drug use. The present observational study was conducted to generate data on drug utilization in inpatients of our tertiary care hospital to identify potential tar...

Technology (BCHT) has been working with the Integrated Healthcare Association (IHA) on its Value–Based Purchasing of Medical Devices (VBP) project, which has included the collection and analysis of hospital and patient data on seven major orthopedic, cardiac, and spine procedures. This Issue Brief is the fi fth in a series that comes out of this project and presents fi ndings on implant costs, ...

This article utilizes the Part A Medicare provider analysis and review (MEDPAR) file for fiscal year (FY) 1987. The discharge records were organized into a patient-based record that included alcohol, drug, and mental (ADM) disorder diagnoses as well as measures of resource use. The authors find that there are substantially higher costs of health care incurred by the drug disorder diagnosed popu...

This study documents the drug therapy patterns and 1-year treatment costs for 18,833 Medicaid patients with schizophrenia treated with conventional antipsychotic medications in Michigan, Kentucky, Alabama, and Georgia. One in four patients used no antipsychotic, but had total costs that were less than for treated patients (-$2,576, p < .0001); 18 percent of treated patients delayed therapy for ...