Findings on Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy Reported by Investigators at University of Utah (Understanding Patient Cost-sharing Thresholds for Diabetes Treatment Attributes Via a Discrete Choice Experiment): Drugs and Therapies – Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy

2023 APR 07 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- Investigators publish new report on Drugs and Therapies - Managed Care and Specialty Pharmacy. According to news originating from Salt Lake City, Utah, by NewsRx correspondents, research stated, “The process used to prefer certain products across drug classes for diabetes is generally focused on compara-tive effectiveness and cost. However, payers rarely tie patient preference for treatment attributes to formulary management result-ing in a misalignment of value defined by providers, payers, and patients.”

Financial support for this research came from PhRMA Foundation.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the University of Utah, “To explore patients’ willingness to pay (WTP) for the predetermined high -value and low-value type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) treatments within a health plan. A cross-sectional discrete choice experiment (DCE) survey was used to deter-mine patient preference for the benefit, risk, and cost attributes of T2DM treatments. A comprehensive literature review of patient preference studies in diabetes and a review of guidelines and medical literature identi-fied study attributes. Patients and diabetes experts were interviewed and instructed to identify, prioritize, and comment on which attributes of diabetes treatments were most important to T2DM patients. The patients enrolled in a health plan were asked to respond to the survey. A multinomial logit model was developed to determine the relative importance and the patient’s WTP of each attribute. The patients’ relative values based on WTPs for T2DM treatments were calculated and compared with the treat-ments by a health plan.A total of 7 attributes were selected to develop a web-based DCE questionnaire survey. The responses from a total of 58 patients were analyzed. Almost half (48.3%) of the respondents took oral medications and injections for T2DM. The most prevalent side effects due to diabetes medications were gastrointestinal (43.1%), followed by weight gain (39.7%) and nausea (32.8%). Patients were willing to pay more for treatments with proven cardiovascular benefit and for the risk reduction of hospital-ization from heart failure. On the other hand, they would pay less for treatments with higher gastrointestinal side effects. Patients were willing to pay the most for sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitor and glucagon-like peptide 1 receptor agonist agents and the least for dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitors and thiazolidinediones.This study provides information to better align patient, provider, and payer preferences in both benefit design and value-based formulary strategy for diabetes treatments.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “A preferred placement of treatments with cardiovascular benefits and lower adverse gastrointestinal side effects may lead to increased adher-ence to medications and improved clinical outcomes at a lower overall cost to both patients and their health plan.”

This research has been peer-reviewed.

For more information on this research see: Understanding Patient Cost-sharing Thresholds for Diabetes Treatment Attributes Via a Discrete Choice Experiment. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy, 2023;29(2):139-150. Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy can be contacted at: Acad Managed Care Pharmacy, 100 N Pitt St, 400, Alexandria, VA 22314-3134, USA.

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from Diana Brixner, University of Utah, Pharmacotherapy Outcomes Research Center, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, United States. Additional authors for this research include Rupesh Panchal, Danielle Nguyen, Priyanka Ghule, Niying Li, Raymond J. Pan, Joseph Biskupiak, Stacey Slager, Laura Britton, Robert Nohavec, Theodoros Giannouchos and Surachat Ngorsuraches.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)