STAT+: Insurance alone didn’t guarantee adherence to Ozempic, study finds
A study of thousands of people who were prescribed GLP-based drugs like Ozempic for diabetes found that copays affect adherence.
Having insurance coverage alone doesn’t guarantee that people can afford or would be willing to pay continuously for chronic disease medications like Ozempic, a new, large-scale study finds.
Looking at insured patients with type 2 diabetes and heart failure, researchers found that people with higher prescription copayments were less likely to consistently take glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1) and sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) — two classes of drugs that yield additional, long-term benefits compared with older treatments but are also costlier.
For example, people with high copayments, defined as over $50, were about 50% less likely to adhere to GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Trulicity than those with low copayments, defined as less than $10, according to the study published in JAMA Network Open Thursday.
What's Your Reaction?
