Year: 2004
Type: article
Abstract: Granting open access to new antipsychotic medications by the California Medicaid Program fostered the desired substitution of second-generation medications for conventional antipsychotics. However, open access also generated an immediate but temporary influx of previously treated patients, many with a recent institutionalization, who restarted drug therapy using the new antipsychotics. Persistence with initial therapy declined, but cost outcomes improved due primarily to reduced nursing home use. Racial disparities were also reversed. Program administrators must use caution when evaluating the impact of unrestricted access on drug therapy outcomes and treatment costs given the changes in the characteristics of patients seeking treatment.
Source: PubMed Central
Institution: University of Southern California
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2110756765