Edwards Marie Louise, Yin Perry T, Kuehn Michael, Bratti Keith, Kirson Noam, Jena Anupam, Howell Scott
Analysis Group, Inc., New York, NY, USA.
Market Access Innovation, US Pharmaceuticals, Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, East Hanover, NJ, USA.
Pharmacoecon Open. 2022 Sep;6(5):711-721. doi: 10.1007/s41669-022-00351-5. Epub 2022 Jul 23.
The use of drug utilization management techniques such as formulary exclusions, prior authorizations, and step edits has risen sharply during the last decade, contributing to growing administrative costs for physician practices. However, limited data exist on the extent of these administrative costs, with previous studies relying on data from over a decade ago.
The aim of this study was to assess physician and practice administrator experiences with drug utilization management.
A national survey was conducted between 9 February and 30 March 2021, targeting 925 physicians and administrators working at medical practices in the US. Time spent by physicians and their staff on tasks related to drug utilization management for prescription medications was collected and used to calculate the dollar value of that time.
We estimated that physicians spent a median of 4.0 h per week on drug utilization management, while nurses spent 15.0 h and other staff spent between 3.6 and 10.0 h on drug utilization management per physician per week. This time was associated with a calculated median dollar value of $75,927 per physician per year. Extrapolating this estimate to a national scale suggests that time spent annually by physician practices on drug utilization management could be valued at more than $43 billion.
Drug utilization management results in significant time spent by US physician practices, which in turn, results in meaningful costs to these practices. As the prevalence of drug utilization management continues to grow, the impact on physician practices will remain an important topic.
在过去十年中，诸如药品目录排除、预先授权和阶梯编辑等药物利用管理技术的使用急剧增加，导致医生诊所的行政成本不断上升。然而，关于这些行政成本的规模的数据有限，以前的研究依赖于十多年前的数据。
本研究的目的是评估医生和诊所管理人员在药物利用管理方面的经验。
2021年2月9日至3月30日进行了一项全国性调查，目标是美国医疗诊所工作的925名医生和管理人员。收集了医生及其工作人员花在与处方药药物利用管理相关任务上的时间，并用于计算这段时间的货币价值。
我们估计，医生每周花在药物利用管理上的时间中位数为4.0小时，而护士为15.0小时，其他工作人员每位医生每周花在药物利用管理上的时间在3.6至10.0小时之间。这段时间计算得出的每位医生每年的货币价值中位数为75,927美元。将这一估计推算到全国范围表明，医生诊所每年花在药物利用管理上的时间价值可能超过430亿美元。
药物利用管理导致美国医生诊所花费大量时间，进而给这些诊所带来可观的成本。随着药物利用管理的普及持续增加，对医生诊所的影响仍将是一个重要话题。
