The Left-Handed Healthcare Economist

It was “give ‘em hell” Harry Truman who said, “Give me a one-handed economist.  All my economists say on the other hand …”

Alas, when it comes to healthcare economics, it seems that “the other hand” is a focus (or rather a lack thereof) on patient care. 

Consider this new press release:

DestinationRx Tools Yield $1 Billion in Savings on Prescription Drugs in 2010
Utilization of low-cost alternative reports leads to significant annual savings

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--DestinationRx, Inc., a leading provider of health plan and drug comparison tools, technology and data, today released data showing the substantial savings offered by the Company’s Drug Compare suite of online prescription drug comparison tools. An analysis of user activity in 2010 shows that the DestinationRx tools yielded an estimated $1 billion in savings for users, with a total of $13 billion in potential savings had all users acted on Drug Compare information.

According to a company spokesperson, “We hope to see even more success in 2011 as we expand and improve our tools to better serve Drug Compare users.”

Now that depends on who your "users" are, doesn't it?

On the one hand, by switching patients to less costly medicines that may not be as effective, money is indeed saved by payers – at least in the short term.  But, on the other hand, what about the many metrics that demonstrate how switching patients for cost rather than therapeutic reasons results in poorer outcomes and increased costs in non-pharmaceutical interventions?

And isn’t the best patient outcome the desired … destination?

Ignorant men don’t know what good they hold in their hands until after they’ve flung it away.

-- Sophocles