Understanding Medication Adherence and Why It’s Important
Adherence to medications occurs when patients take their medicine as prescribed. To achieve the full benefit of their therapy, patients must follow prescribed treatment regimens reasonably closely.
In the U.S., over 5 billion prescriptions are written each year.1 Approximately one in five new prescriptions are never filled, and among those filled, approximately 50% are taken incorrectly, particularly with regard to timing, dosage, frequency, and duration.2
That’s unfortunate, when you consider adherence to prescribed medications is associated with improved clinical outcomes for chronic disease management and reduced mortality from chronic conditions.3
Why Medication Adherence Is Important
Taking your medicine as prescribed is important for controlling chronic conditions, treating temporary conditions, and overall long-term health and well-being. A personal connection with your health care provider or pharmacist is a significant part of sticking to your treatment plan.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates non-adherence causes 30% to 50% of chronic disease treatment failures and 125,000 deaths per year in this country.4 Non-adherence is associated with higher rates of hospital admissions, suboptimal health outcomes, increased morbidity and mortality, and increased health care costs.5
In fact, health care costs associated with non-adherence have grown to approximately $100 to $300 billion of U.S. health care dollars spent annually.6,7 Improving medication adherence is a public health priority and could reduce the economic and health burdens of many diseases and chronic conditions.8
It is interesting to note that adherence rates for specialty medications are higher when compared to non-specialty medications. One of the major reasons specialty medication adherence rates are higher is because specialty pharmacies such as AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy offer many specific programs designed to help patients manage these specialty disease states. This is important since the high cost of many specialty therapies represented some 50% of total drug spending in 2021.9
Reasons for Non-Adherence
Many reasons can lead to low adherence rates and are categorized in different ways. The simplest reason for non-adherence occurs when a patient forgets to take their medication. Another major reason for non-adherence is the patient’s ability to afford medications. These financial reasons include insurance changes, underinsured or uninsured patients, high copays, or loss of copay assistance. Examples of clinical reasons for non-adherence may include a patient experiencing an adverse side effect or abnormal lab work.10
How AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy Helps Patients Stay on Therapy
AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy has a number of programs and resources to help patients adhere to their treatment plan.
• Specialty360 Therapy Teams – Specially trained professionals provide holistic patient care specific to their condition and work collaboratively with providers to monitor side effects and maintain adherence.
• Connected Care. All patients are enrolled in our Connected Care clinical management program and receive counseling about their prescribed therapy. Connected Care programs provide support and clinician interventions specific to each patient’s self-reported issues that may create risk to their therapy outcomes, adherence, and quality of life.
• Digital tools. For certain medications, AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy has a digital platform where patients can manage their own refills and schedule deliveries. This enables patients to refill at their convenience and by their preferred method of communication.
Adherence to medications is an important step in helping ensure optimal outcomes from medication therapy. AllianceRx Walgreens Pharmacy makes it a priority to assist patients through their journey to improve adherence rates, improve patient outcomes, and provide hope and care for better tomorrows.
1 Total number of retail prescriptions filled annually in the U.S. 2013-2025 | Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/261303/total-number-of-retail-prescriptions-filled-annually-in-the-us/ Accesses Jan 26, 2023.
2Osterberg L, Blaschke T. Adherence to medication. N Engl J Med 2005;353:487–97.
3Vrijens B, De Geest S, Hughes DA, et al. A new taxonomy for describing and defining adherence to medications. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2012;73:691–705.
4Why You Need To Take Your Medication As Prescribed. US Food & Drug Administration. https://www.fda.gov/drugs/special-features/why-you-need-take-your-medications-prescribed-or-instructed#:~:text=Taking%20your%20medicine%20as%20prescribed%20or%20medication%20adherence%20is%20important,important%20part%20of%20medication%20adherence. Accessed Jan 13, 2023.
5DiMatteo MR. Variations in patients’ adherence to medical recommendations: a quantitative review of 50 years of research. Med Care 2004;42:200–9.
6Iuga AO, McGuire MJ. Adherence and health care costs. Risk Manag Healthc Policy 2014;7:35–44.
7Viswanathan M, Golin CE, Jones CD, et al. Interventions to improve adherence to self-administered medications for chronic diseases in the United States: a systematic review. Ann Intern Med 2012;157:785–95.
8National Center for Health Statistics. National health expenditures, average annual percent change, and percent distribution, by type of expenditure: United States, selected years 1960–2014. Hyattsville, MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, CDC, National Center for Health Statistics; 2015. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/2015/094.
9Trends in Prescription Drug Spending, 2016-2021. Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. Office of Science & Data Policy. https://aspe.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/88c547c976e915fc31fe2c6903ac0bc9/sdp-trends-prescription-drug-spending.pdf. September 2022. Accessed Jan. 13, 2023.
10Using rates of non-adherence to identify opportunities for intervention in outpatient specialty clinics. Journal of Drug Assessment. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21556660.2018.1521044. Published September 20, 2018. Accessed January 13, 2023.
Back to Blog > Blog Stories