Drug Spending Not Linked to Care Quality

Higher spending on medicine may not mean better care, a new study has found. Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh did the study. They looked at Medicare drug spending nationwide. Drug spending varied widely by region. And so did doctors’ prescribing of drugs that have a high risk of harm for older adults. But the areas with high drug spending often were not the areas with the most high-risk prescriptions. In fact, regions with high spending on care other than drugs tended to have more high-risk prescriptions. The study contradicts “the idea that high spending leads to better prescription practices,” said lead investigator Yuting Zhang, Ph.D. The New England Journal of Medicine published the results online. HealthDay News and Reuters Health news service wrote about it November 3.