The Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), represents U.S. manufacturers and distributors of over-the-counter medicines and dietary supplements and obviously has a point of view on this issue. But here are some of the stats it presented to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) at the agency's recent public hearing.
- When frequent heartburn medicines were made available without a prescription, consumers saved an average of $174 per year in avoided prescription costs and office visits. This additional access also drove a $750 million savings to the healthcare system. (Nielsen 2009)
- When nicotine replacement therapies used to quit smoking went OTC, there was a 150 percent to 200 percent increase in their use in the first year after the switch. (Shiffman 1997; Keeler 2002)
- Doctor visits for the common cold fell by more than 100,000 a year from 1976 to 1989 following the late-1970s and early-1980s switches of a number of decongestants and antihistamines (Temin 1992)
- When vaginal yeast treatments were made available without a prescription, studies found that women were as accurate as their doctors in recognizing the recurrence of vaginal yeast infection. (Lipsky 2000)
Does this shape your thoughts on the issue at all? Or do you think it's too one-sided?
Re: Pharmacists know best
driven
4/5/2012 12:29:57 PM
Yikes! Your CVS story sends shivers down my spine, @Noreen. However, the pharmacist my son and I dealt with didn't know enough English to have found the name mix-up funny...
Re: Pharmacists know best
cat tail
4/4/2012 11:04:50 AM
No, it isn't funny. It is beyond belief that a professional behind a pharmacy counter would find such a mistake funny. What if one woman had not even shared her condition with the other? What about the violation of her privacy?
You are so right @Street Smart. I recently heard yet another CVS story that made me cringe. A woman I know is receiving chemotherapy. She had to pick something up at CVS post treatment and take it ASAP. It was not there--although an eye ointment for her sister-in-law was.
The store gave the cancer drug to the sister-in-law.
Now human error happens. However, the two woman do not have similar first names. And this is the worst part. Do you know what the pharmacy tech did when the woman pointed out the error? Apologize? Express remorse? Nope.
"She laughed," the woman with cancer told me. "She said 'Oh isn't this funny!'"
Well, no. It isn't.
I have a wonderful independent pharmacist who could ask to perform abdominal surgery on me and I'd let him. Another pharmacist at a second independent drug store I went to recently caught a mistake that my son's doctor had made on prescribing an antibiotic and made three phone calls to fix the problem, after which I paid $1.47 for the prescription.
On the other hand, I tagged along recently when my other son refilled a prescription at a large chain store, and just about everything went wrong with that transaction--on a REFILL. If that pharmacist had recommended a SUNSCREEN, I would have run in the other direction.
I really agree with @cat tail and @drivewaygirl that pharmacies are all over the map with the advice and personnel that they provide.
Re: Pharmacists know best
tokyogai
4/3/2012 2:21:09 PM
They have systems like this in other countries- called Pharmacist prescriptions. It seems to work well. I think we should give it a try.
Pharmacists know best
Tenacious
4/3/2012 11:53:40 AM
But in many respects it makes sense. Your pharmacist often has a better handle on drugs and their use than your doctor. So if you can find a good pharmacist, this could be a reasonable plan that could save consumers the trip to the physician and boost profits for phama companies,
Re: Insurance Ramifications
Drivewaygirl
4/3/2012 11:30:16 AM
And privacy. At the CVS I go to, they state the name of the drug you are picking up so loudly that it is downright embrassing. How are they planning to offer this counseling discretely?
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