By HANS DUVEFELT, MD

I have noticed several articles describing how antibiotic development has bankrupted some pharmaceutical companies because there isn’t enough potential profit in a ten day course to treat multi-resistant superbug infections.

Chronic disease treatments, on the other hand, appear to be extremely profitable. A single month’s treatment with the newer diabetes drugs, COPD inhalers or blood thinners costs over $500, which means well over $50,000 over an effective ten year patent for each one of an ever increasing number of chronically ill patients.

Imagine if the same bureaucratic processes insurance companies have created for chronic disease drug coverage existed (I don’t know if they do) for acute prescriptions of superbug antibiotics: It’s Friday afternoon and a septic patient’s culture comes back indicating that the only drug that would work is an expensive one that requires a Prior Authorization. Patients would die and the insurance companies would be better off if time ran out in such bureaucratic battles for survival.

Suddenly it’s perfectly clear: There is endless profit potential for countless corporations in America’s chronic disease epidemic and it is in their interest that people with chronic disease stay as sick as possible without dying from their disease. Why risk research money on acute disease when there is no continuing revenue stream to look forward to?

If people did all the things we know could improve their health, pharmaceutical companies, insurance companies, pharmacy benefit managers and many others would go out of business, just like shopping malls and print media companies.

Where are the disrupters in healthcare? Will the perverse motives of the sick care industry create a public uproar? Will the old system someday finally crumble?

Now, I’m just a country doctor but I’m starting to wonder if a system like the one we have can really continue to function much longer.

Happy New Year, American Healthcare.

Hans Duvefelt is a Swedish-born rural Family Physician in Maine. This post originally appeared on his blog, A Country Doctor Writes, here.

The post Chronic Disease Drugs are Big Business, Antibiotics are Not appeared first on The Health Care Blog.



from The Health Care Blog https://ift.tt/2Ftz8nr

Related Posts:

  • The Business Case for Social Determinants of HealthBy JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH How can understanding the underlying social risks impacting patient populations improve health outcomes AND save health plans some serious per-member-per-month costs? You’re probably familiar wi… Read More
  • Our Dead on Every ShoreBy MAYURA DESHPANDE  I once made a serious error. The patient had taken an overdose of paracetamol, but because I was single-handedly covering three inpatient acute psychiatric wards due to sickness of two other trainees… Read More
  • Advance Practice vs Primary Care By SAURABH JHA MD  In this episode of Radiology Firing Line Podcast, Danny Huges and I discuss a JAMA paper: A comparison of diagnostic imaging ordering patterns between advanced practice clinicians and primary care phy… Read More
  • Interoperability and Data Blocking | Part 1: Fostering InnovationBy DAVE LEVIN MD  The Office of the National Coordinator (ONC) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have published proposed final rules on interoperability and data blocking as part of implementing the 21st Ce… Read More
  • ONC’s Proposed Rule is a Breakthrough in Patient EmpowermentBy ADRIAN GROPPER Imagine solving wicked problems of patient matching, consent, and a patient-centered longitudinal health record while also enabling a world of new healthcare services for patients and physicians to use. The… Read More

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Popular Posts