Medication adherence and enrollment in a consumer-driven health plan

To evaluate the impact of enrolling in a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) on adherence to maintenance drugs.

Two-year retrospective cohort study.

Consumer-driven health plan patients were enrolled in a traditional managed care plan in 2005 (pre-year) and a full-replacement CDHP in 2006 (post-year). Traditional-plan patients voluntarily enrolled in a traditional plan in both years. Adherence measures included (1) post-year continuation rate among continuous users, (2) time to refill the first prescription in the post-year, (3) change in the compliance rate from the pre- to the post-year, and (4) total days with continuous drug supply in the post-year. Analysis was conducted on 8 drug classes.

The CDHP patients had a slightly higher illness burden and used more medication in the pre-year. The continuation rate was relatively high for all drug classes, although the CDHP cohort had a lower probability of continuing cardiac and cholesterol drugs. Consumer-driven health plan patients took slightly longer on average to refill their first prescription in the post-year for cardiac, hypertension, cholesterol, and thyroid drugs. The compliance rate dropped over time in both cohorts, but the reduction was bigger among CDHP patients for 3 drug classes (adjusted ratio of the odds ratios was 0.77, 0.78, and 0.69 for asthma, cardiac, and cholesterol drugs, respectively). The CDHP patients also terminated their continuous drug supply 21 days earlier for epilepsy drugs and 27 days earlier for cholesterol drugs.

Adherence was lower for a few drug classes among CDHP patients.