Affordability and Informed Prescribing

Shared decision but not costs: When should affordability inform prescribing? The doctor-patient relationship is grounded in the responsibility to act in the patient’s interests and welfare, yet the high cost of many prescription drugs threatens to challenge that paradigm. As costs continue to rise, prescribers must consider whether to offer patients less effective but more affordable medications. Simultaneously, new drugs with limited evidence of effectiveness but significant safety concerns may be the only options available for some patients: How best to manage those competing values? This seminar will explore these growing challenges from both sides of the doctor-patient relationship and consider how best to promote patients’ welfare.

Featuring:

• Jerry Avorn, MD, Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School; Program on Regulation, Therapeutics, and Law, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
• Shaina Kasper, Executive Director, T1International
• Christopher L. Cai MD, MS, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School