- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
Episode 5 - Recognizing and Addressing Factors Related to Nonadherence
During this segment, Maria Lopes, MD, MS, explains that cost is not the only factor that is associated with treatment nonadherence in patients with diabetes and obesity. Dr Lopes notes that cost is usually number 3 on the list of reasons why patients do not take medicine as prescribed.
Dr Lopes explains that nonadherence is multifactorial; other factors that contribute to nonadherence include the development of troublesome side effects, denial of the disease diagnosis, healthcare disparities, and psychosocial issues including depression. She notes the importance of individualized treatment.
Yehuda Handelsman, MD, FACP, FACE, FNLA, discusses the relationship between adherence and overall outcomes. He explains that poor adherence rates have been associated with poor outcomes for patients in several disease categories including diabetes.
Dr Handelsman emphasizes the need to improve patient adherence and highlights the results of a published study that determined that 33% of patients never visit the pharmacy to fill a prescription.
To address patient nonadherence issues, Dr Lopes believes that regardless of treatment response or the success rates of pharmacotherapy options, patients need to receive continued support from healthcare professionals.
Kari Uusinarkaus, MD, FAAFP, FNLA, further explains how health literacy is related to adherence, and suggests that physicians need to speak to patients on a level that patients can understand.
Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Michael E. Chernew, PhD
December 2nd 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The December issue features a conversation with AJMC Co–Editors in Chief A. Mark Fendrick, MD, director of the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design and a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Michael E. Chernew, PhD, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
Read More
