Researchers Study Health Costs

Capping prescription reimbursements for the elderly and disabled could lead to increased nursing home admissions, said a Harvard Medical School study.

The study compared 411 Medicaid recipients in New Hampshire with 1375 from New Jersey, according to a Medical School press release. New Hampshire limited patients to no more than three prescription reimbursements per month, while New Jersey had no cap at all.

Results of Study

The results of the study were published in yesterday's New England Journal of Medicine. The five researchers working on the project found that prior to New Hampshire's cap on prescriptions, both states admitted an equal number of patients to nursing homes.

Once the restriction was in place, however, New Hampshire Medicaid recipients were admitted to nursing homes twice as often as those in New Jersey, while there was a 35 percent drop in their number of prescriptions filled.

When the cap was replaced by a cost-sharing plan, the number of patients entering nursing homes declined.

Researchers said that this attempt to cap costs may prove more expensive in the long run, since the additional costs for extra nursing home care may have matched or even exceeded the savings in Medicaid drug expenditures.

The team is currently investigating whether those that entered the nursing homes did so to maintain medication coverage or because they actually became sicker under the cap system.