Families and consumers know from heart wrenching, personal experience how difficult it can be to find just the right medication or combination of medications to treat mental illness. Perhaps, someday, a simple blood test may tell us which medication is right for which individual, but that time is still in the distant future. In the meantime, erecting barriers to accessing the right medication has the potential for devastating consequences for persons living with serious mental illness.
It is vital that we preserve access to the full range of psychiatric medications with no carve out or prior approval required. Cost saving measures such as PDLs, rebates, fail first and step therapy do not really save the state money in the long run. In fact, they cost the state money through increased hospitalizations and needless incarceration.
A ten-state study of Medicaid prescription drug policies revealed that the use of preferred drug lists was associated with 5.4 higher odds of medication access problems, including inability to get refills or new prescriptions, discontinuing or temporarily stopping a medication, and being prescribed a medication that was not clinically preferred. Use of prior authorization was associated with 7.8 times higher odds of a medication access problem. Behind these statistics are lives thrown tragically off course because of the inability to access needed or correct medication. |
