The effects of cost sharing in the Medicare Part D benefit on branded and generic oral anti-diabetic adherence
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Abstract
This dissertation includes three papers on oral anti-diabetic (OAD) medication adherence and the Medicare Part D benefit. The data source for all analyses is the IMS Health Longitudinal Prescription database, which contains patient de-identified prescription data from computerized pharmacy records and reflects over 60% of the prescriptions filled in the United States. The analytic samples culled from this database consist of elderly diabetes patients with Medicare Part D standard (non-LIS), low-income-subsidy (LIS), or commercial prescription medication coverage. I compare non-LIS patients, whose coverage contains a gap (also known as the "donut hole"), to patients with LIS or commercial coverage and no gap.
The first paper tests the hypothesis that diabetes patients with non-LIS coverage are selective in their use of oral anti-diabetic (OAD) medications, and less likely to be adherent to branded-only class OADs. I use logistic regression to model the effects of this coverage on within-class OAD adherence, comparing non-LIS to propensity-matched LIS and commercially covered patients. I find evidence that the Part D benefit is associated with cost-related non-adherence in branded-only, but not primarily generic, class OADs.
In the second paper, I examine the effects of increasing generic medication use on concurrent adherence evaluations. I use the same logistic model to compare three recognized but different concurrent adherence outcome measures. The measures generate estimates of the effects of Part D coverage on adherence that differ in significance and magnitude and that vary further, depending on the distribution of prices in the underlying patient sample.
In the third paper, I test the hypothesis that patients decrease more costly branded OAD use in anticipation of the Part D coverage gap. Using a difference-in-difference design, I use GEE via proc genmod to estimate the effects of the gap on within-class OAD adherence over the coverage year. Compared to LIS and commercially covered, non-LIS patients have increasingly lower odds of adherence to branded-only class OADs starting in the first month of the coverage year. These findings provide evidence of forward-looking behavior, and suggest further that deductibles and co-payments, Part D cost sharing components in addition to the gap, adversely affect adherence.
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Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University
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