PHILADELPHIA – A carefully tailored program in which physicians talked with heart failure (HF) patients about the cost of their medications improved medication adherence and the likelihood that patients get the medications they're prescribed, results of a pilot study show.
The POCKET-COST-HF trial integrated information about patient-specific out-of-pocket (OOP) drug costs into clinical encounters between cardiologists and patients with heart failure with reduced ejection fraction (HFrEF) at six clinic sites in two different health systems. Neil W. Dickert, MD, PhD, primary investigator of the trial, said OOP costs for HFrEF patients with Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage can run upwards of $2,600 a year for four-drug therapy. Dr. Dickert is a cardiologist at Emory University in Atlanta.
"The primary outcome for the study was whether patients and clinicians essentially talked about the cost of medications," Dr. Dickert said in an interview. "The study was positive in that perspective; we saw an increase of about 19% in the encounters that had cost conversations related to heart failure medication."
The trialwhich Dr. Dickert presented at the annual scientific sessions of the American Heart Association, was designed to evaluate the effect of patient-specific OOP costs in the shared decision-making about heart failure medications, Dr.
