Medicaid expansion under Affordable Care Act increased prescription filing

The number of prescriptions filled by adults using Medicaid increased by nearly 20% in the first 18 months of the Affordable Care Act’s implementation, according to findings recently presented at the Society of General Internal Medicine Meeting.“In recent years, the high prices of life-saving hepatitis C and HIV medications have fueled debate about the role of public policy in providing access to costly but effective pharmacological treatments for vulnerable populations. Moreover, care management through prescription drugs may potentially reduce the use of more resource-intensive medical care such as [ED] visits or other non-drug spending,” Ausmita Ghosh, department of economics, Indiana University Purdue University-Indianapolis, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, and colleagues wrote. “Utilization of prescription medications can also provide early evidence of [the Affordable Care Act’s] Medicaid expansion effects on access to providers, because prescriptions can only be obtained through consultation with a medical practitioner with prescriptive authority.”