Behavior

November 2, 2021

Opioid painkillers are a double-edged sword for older workers. The medications allow them to keep working through their joint or back pain. But a slide into addiction would interfere with doing their jobs.

A new RAND study of workers over age 50 has identified some of the negative consequences of relying on opioids. Rather than promoting work, the researchers found that opioids can cause or exacerbate disabling health conditions, hindering users’ ability to work and making them increasingly dependent on federal disability benefits over time.

Bad results from opioid overuse may seem predictable, given that doctors prescribe them to people who are in worse physical condition in the first place. But older workers’ health is already in decline, just by virtue of their age, so it’s not always clear how, or to what extent, opioids are affecting them.

The researchers sorted this out using a 2009 survey of older Americans in the long-running Health and Retirement Study (HRS). They matched people who didn’t take the medications with similar people who did – similar in everything from their functional limitations and sociodemographics to their labor market histories. The HRS continued to interview both groups over the next decade, allowing the researchers to compare the opioids’ effects over a longer period than prior studies.

For example, although the opioid users and non-users were in similar health in 2008, things changed dramatically – and quickly – the researchers found. As early as 2012, the opioid users were significantly more likely to have developed a disabling condition that limited their work capacity.

Opioid use or abuse is linked to myriad health problems. Overuse can exacerbate autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis. Users also have less healthy lifestyles and are prone to infectious diseases and mental illness, and opioids can impair lung function. …Learn More

Money Culture

February 21, 2019

Medicare Part D, passed in 2003, has significantly reduced seniors’ spending on prescription drugs. But the coverage hasn’t protected Leslie Ross from near calamity.

The 72-year-old diabetic needs insulin to stay alive. The prices of these drugs have skyrocketed, forcing her to supplement her long-lasting insulin, Lantus, with more frequent use of a less-expensive insulin. This one remains in her body only four hours, requiring more vigilance to control her blood sugar.

To cut her Lantus bills – nearly $1,700 this year – she has sometimes resorted to buying unused supplies from other diabetics on eBay. “You take your chances when you do stuff like that,” she said. “I checked that the vial hasn’t been opened. It still had the lavender cap on it.” She also reuses syringes.

The issue facing retirees like Ross is an erosion of financial protections under their Part D prescription drug coverage because of spiraling drug prices. New medications are hitting the market at very high initial prices, and the cost of older, once-affordable drugs increase year after year, said Juliette Cubanski, director of Medicare policy for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

“A fundamental problem when it comes to people’s ability to afford their prescription drugs is the high prices charged for many of these medications,” she said.

Part D has no annual cap on how much retirees have to pay out of their own pockets for prescriptions. A new Kaiser report finds that retirees’ spending on specialty drugs – defined as costing more than $670 per month – can range from $2,700 to $16,500 per year. Specialty drugs include Lantus, Zepatier for hepatitis C, Humira for rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer drugs like Idhifa, which treats leukemia.

They “can be a real retirement savings drainer,” especially for very sick seniors, said Mary Johnson of the Seniors Citizens League, a non-profit advocacy group. …Learn More

Behavior

October 18, 2018

A Squared Away reader wrote recently that he and his wife saved $2,400 a year by paying cash for their medications.   

When a pharmacy sells a prescription drug to a customer, the health insurer reimburses the pharmacy at a negotiated rate that covers its cost for the drug, its dispensing fees, and any additional markup. It’s often the case that a patient’s copayment exceeds the pharmacy’s reimbursement, resulting in an overcharge in the copayment. More than one in four copayments were overcharges in a March analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Association of some 4,000 outpatient drugs and
9 million insurance claims by people of all ages.

We asked Mohamed A. Jalloh in Napa, California, to guide consumers on how to reduce their costs. He is a pharmacist, assistant professor at the Touro University California College of Pharmacy, and a spokesman for the American Pharmacists Association. 

Question: How can retirees access their option to pay a cash price for a prescription if it is lower than their Part D or Medicare Advantage plan copayment?

Jalloh: The big picture is that elderly patients should work with a pharmacist to see if they can get a better deal. If you process a prescription through your insurance – whether under an employer’s health insurance or Medicare drug coverage – the price may be higher than paying straight cash for the medication. Anyone can do this. But I imagine it helps seniors the most because they’re the ones taking the most medications.

The key is to ask the pharmacist to go over your medications with you. Do a medication check-up once a year. That’s the best time to see if a pharmacist can get a better deal for you.

Q. Is it common practice to negotiate a cash price?

Jalloh: I think that people do not know about this option and would really appreciate learning about it. It’s also important to remember that, in most cases, people are still going to get a better deal with insurance by paying, say, a $5 or $10 drug copay. …Learn More