While more patient-centered formularies are a clear step forward in the right direction for increased value, there are still challenges ahead, according to the authors of a Health Affairs blog post.
The authors, Precision Health Economics’ Jason Shafrin and Mark Linthicum, say formulary design should “take into account more than clinical efficacy and cost.”
“While these are essential parts of evaluating formulary placement, we need to recognize and consider those elements that patients are focused on — including risk of specific side effects, impacts on quality of life, time away from work, and more,” they write.
Formulary decisions, however, run into trouble when heterogeneity — which is crucial for patient-centered formularies — is added to the mix.
” … Nobel Prize-winning economist Kenneth Arrow showed that collective decision-making processes such as formulary designs inevitably privilege the preferences of one type of person—for example, the average person, the sickest person, the healthiest person—over the preferences of individual patients,” they write.
To read the full blog post on Health Affairs, click here.
