The adherence problem is mainly caused by high drug prices, which can be solved either by drug price rate regulations or by providing medical aid to patients without sufficient resources. Nurses should always ask if a patient can afford the desired medicine. It will ensure that there will be full adherence to the treatment, but if a patient cannot afford the medication, nurses should provide the most effective treatment for the patient’s financial situation. Therefore, the most important recommendation for nurses is to be able to design alternative treatments adjusted to patients’ needs (Gipson, Kelly, McKinney, & White, 2017). It will lead to the overall improvement in adherence without which the most effective treatment procedures are useless.
The affordability factor can only be influenced by either lowering the cost or increasing the income. The latter is impossible to integrate on the national scale, which makes low-cost drugs a priority. The best plausible solution is to remove or reduce the amount of patent-related regulations because the patented product does not operate in the competitive market. This leads to an uncontrolled drug price increase, which is a similar occurrence in monopolistic organizations (Gipson et al., 2017). Patented drugs should be rewarded by a shorter exclusion timeframe, which is compensated with monetary rewards. This will eliminate the risk of research motivation loss; however, it will allow other competitor companies to produce drugs, which reduces the inflated medication price.
Because several patients do not inform advanced practice nursing clinicians on the causes of cost-related medication non-adherence, nurses should encourage the discussion of the given topic. The prescription process must be modified to be highly patient-oriented, which will solve the issue of affordability and alternative planning (Hammond, Chiu, Painter, & Meena, 2018). The primary approach should be focused on an open discussion, which can be achieved by making the conversation on finances as comfortable as possible because it is a delicate topic. In addition, patients should be informed of the downsides of choosing less expensive treatments and drugs to allow them to make a conscious and deliberate choice.
If a person’s insurance does not cover medications, but he/she needs them for the proper treatment, a healthcare professional is ethically obliged to find the best possible solution. However, no doctor or nurse should fund the cost for medication, because this is a patient’s concern and no one is responsible for his/her financial situation (Hammond et al., 2018). Only government programs, special aid institutions alongside insurance companies can be considered as sources of funding. In addition, a nursing professional can provide financial support for the patient, but it should be done as a personal choice and not due to an ethical obligation of his or her specialty.
Currently, the biggest prescription cost issues regarding women’s care are fertility and birth control medications. These drugs can be a primary cause of why women spend more money on pills than men. Women are turning down various birth control medications, which are not harmful to the hormonal balance because they are expensive (Gipson et al., 2017). There is a cheaper and more affordable alternative in the market, but these prescription drugs lead to more unstable hormonal fluctuations. It means that women using cheaper pills are at higher risk of acquiring harmful side effects of these drugs.
References
Gipson, G., Kelly, J. L., McKinney, C. M., & White, A. A. (2017). Optimizing prescribing practices of high-cost medications with computerized alerts in the inpatient setting. American Journal of Medical Quality, 32(3), 278-284.
Hammond, D. A., Chiu, T., Painter, J. T., & Meena, N. (2018). Nonpharmacist health care providers’ knowledge of and opinions regarding medication costs in critically Ill patients. Hospital Pharmacy, 53(3), 188-193.