Medication policy: Evidence analysis and outreach

Members of the Alosa team and our affiliated colleagues have years of experience analyzing the relation between patterns of medication use, outcomes, and cost in relation to drug policies at the state, federal, and health system levels. Just as we use our expertise to evaluate claims and counterclaims related to specific medications, we also critically evaluate the data on issues of drug approval, charges, costs, reimbursement policies, and their impact on patients and payors. We can then devise evidence-based recommendations for policy and system-based changes to improve access by patients to the prescription drugs that are the most clinically appropriate and affordable. Those insights can then be “marketed” through proactive educational outreach to key decisionmakers and policymakers to inform their work, parallel to our use of educational outreach to clinicians to offer them the most current, unbiased information about medication effects.

Work by our affiliated colleagues in these areas includes:

• defining the drivers of medication prices.
• assisting state-level Prescription Drug Affordability Boards.
• evaluating the role of cost-effectiveness analysis in determining fair charges for drugs.
• understanding the role of patents and other federal mechanisms in influencing medication costs.
• devising ways to improve the work of federal agencies that approve new medications and shape their reimbursement.
• integrating the evidence on effective policy interventions throughout the health care system that have been shown to improve the quality and affordability of medication use at the macro level.