"US spends US$3 billion a year on unused cancer drugs - Reuters 25 Mar 2016
(Reuters Health) - U.S. doctors and hospitals throw out almost US$3 billion (roughly 2.7 billion euros) in unused cancer drugs each year because the medicines come in supersized single-use packages and excess medicine must be discarded for safety reasons, a recent paper suggests.
Researchers focused on 20 expensive medicines that are given by injection or intravenous drip and require doses adjusted based on the patient’s body size. Often, the packages contain much more medicine than patients need, and the leftovers wind up in the trash.
Even when much of the medicine goes in the garbage, patients pay for the whole vial, said lead author Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
“The waste is driving up the cost of their care and it is money that they are spending that provides them no benefit,” Bach said by email. “It also drives up the cost for their insurance, which leads to higher premiums, which costs them more money too.”"
We just had our FY2017 Budget presented by Minister Heng yesterday. It was notable, without any surprise given the ageing population we are facing, that healthcare budget had gone up quite a bit.
Each time the government Budget is announced in the last few years, I invariably raised the following points on healthcare costs:
1. STOP saying that: 'If you want good quality health and medical care, you have to pay MORE!' Advances in medical science and pharmaceutical products/services/solutions are expensive to come by and need to be funded. There is NO ARGUMENT about this need. At the same time, the mind-set must be: higher quality means lower waste and leading to lower cost eventually. Innovation sometimes cannot be bought by sheer money!;
2. while I am sure our Health Ministry keeps track of the MOST EXPENSIVE medicines and IF they are wisely used as the NY study revealed, it is important that it PUBLISHES such studies REGULARLY to the public to assure the taxpayers that we are truly prudent and suffer no fools who try to MAXIMISE their revenue and even profit selling SUPER-SIZE medicines to the public hospitals and polyclinics!;
3. much has been made of the increase in benefits, subsidies and incentives provided to the older citizens and some questioned IF this is sustainable. It is unsustainable IF the system CANNOT find enough resources elsewhere to fund this expenditure as it is really pure consumption without MUCH return unless the patients are someone who generate an inordinate amount of GDP by himself/herself! So, the trillion of national reserves are relied upon to provide SOME funding of the healthcare cost through passive and relatively safe fixed income portfolio. As long as we are not 'eating' into the 'old painstakingly accumulated reserve itself', this part of the unavoidable funding is well taken care of.
May we continue to be vigilant against WASTEFUL healthcare cost items. There are rooms to make healthcare cost lower while keeping, or even increasing, the quality of care through mindfulness and innovativeness.
Blessed the patients. Happy Good Friday. Entering into Easter Sunday soon...
(Reuters Health) - U.S. doctors and hospitals throw out almost US$3 billion (roughly 2.7 billion euros) in unused cancer drugs each year because the medicines come in supersized single-use packages and excess medicine must be discarded for safety reasons, a recent paper suggests.
Researchers focused on 20 expensive medicines that are given by injection or intravenous drip and require doses adjusted based on the patient’s body size. Often, the packages contain much more medicine than patients need, and the leftovers wind up in the trash.
Even when much of the medicine goes in the garbage, patients pay for the whole vial, said lead author Dr. Peter Bach, director of the Center for Health Policy and Outcomes at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
“The waste is driving up the cost of their care and it is money that they are spending that provides them no benefit,” Bach said by email. “It also drives up the cost for their insurance, which leads to higher premiums, which costs them more money too.”"
We just had our FY2017 Budget presented by Minister Heng yesterday. It was notable, without any surprise given the ageing population we are facing, that healthcare budget had gone up quite a bit.
Each time the government Budget is announced in the last few years, I invariably raised the following points on healthcare costs:
1. STOP saying that: 'If you want good quality health and medical care, you have to pay MORE!' Advances in medical science and pharmaceutical products/services/solutions are expensive to come by and need to be funded. There is NO ARGUMENT about this need. At the same time, the mind-set must be: higher quality means lower waste and leading to lower cost eventually. Innovation sometimes cannot be bought by sheer money!;
2. while I am sure our Health Ministry keeps track of the MOST EXPENSIVE medicines and IF they are wisely used as the NY study revealed, it is important that it PUBLISHES such studies REGULARLY to the public to assure the taxpayers that we are truly prudent and suffer no fools who try to MAXIMISE their revenue and even profit selling SUPER-SIZE medicines to the public hospitals and polyclinics!;
3. much has been made of the increase in benefits, subsidies and incentives provided to the older citizens and some questioned IF this is sustainable. It is unsustainable IF the system CANNOT find enough resources elsewhere to fund this expenditure as it is really pure consumption without MUCH return unless the patients are someone who generate an inordinate amount of GDP by himself/herself! So, the trillion of national reserves are relied upon to provide SOME funding of the healthcare cost through passive and relatively safe fixed income portfolio. As long as we are not 'eating' into the 'old painstakingly accumulated reserve itself', this part of the unavoidable funding is well taken care of.
May we continue to be vigilant against WASTEFUL healthcare cost items. There are rooms to make healthcare cost lower while keeping, or even increasing, the quality of care through mindfulness and innovativeness.
Blessed the patients. Happy Good Friday. Entering into Easter Sunday soon...
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