Management of access to branded psychotropic medications in private health plans

Antidepressant Switching Among Adherent Patients Treated for Depression

“…We also examined several demographic and clinical characteristics of patients: age (18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38)(39)(40)(41)(42)(43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48)(49)(50)(51)(52)(53)(54)(55), and 56-75 years), sex, and specialty of the physician prescribing the first antidepressant. Physician specialty was classified as psychiatry, primary care (general practice, family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics and adolescent medicine, and obstetrics-gynecology), or other medical specialties.…”

Benefit Limits for Behavioral Health Care in Private Health Plans

“…Spending on medications does not count toward the special limits described in this paper, so those limits would have less impact on patients receiving only periodic visits for medication monitoring (although their spending on drugs is managed using other techniques such as three-tier formularies) (Huskamp 2005; Hodgkin, Horgan, Garnick et al, 2007). However, a majority of treatment users have at least some ambulatory visits, amounting to 66% of users in 2001 (Zuvekas, 2005).…”

Development of the Burden of Prior Authorization of Psychotherapeutics (BoPAP) Scale to Assess the Effects of Prior Authorization Among Texas Medicaid Providers

“…Research shows that cost containment strategies that focus on decreasing the utilization of one component of the health care process, such as drugs, may result in the increased utilization of other, possibly more expensive services (Delate et al 2005;Goldman et al 2007;Hodgkin et al 2007;Koyanagi et al 2005;Lichtenberg 2005;MacKinnon and Kumar 2001;Murawski and Abdelgawad 2005;Soumerai 2004;Tilly and Elman 2003;Wilson et al 2005;Moore and Newman 1993). A pooled analysis of the effects of restricted formularies implemented by Medicaid programs in 47 states indicated that cost savings on drug expenditures did not necessarily translate into savings in total expenditures (Moore and Newman 1993).…”