Private practice with Dr Seth Bilazarian

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Reviewing meds to help patients save money

Feb 5, 2010 14:10 EST


Patients frequently ask to review their medications with an eye to cutting cost—an important criterion affecting adherence and compliance. As pharmacies have had to reduce prices to stay competitive, there are now a proliferation of reasonably priced plans with varying features and benefits. I've found it important to evaluate each plan to find out exactly what is covered (see attached excel sheet). What has been your experience in helping patients to save on their medications?





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Your comments
Reviewing meds to help patients save money
# 1 of 2
February 8, 2010 09:44 (EST)
Anuj Gupta
Dr. Bilazarian should also look at Costco.  Although a membership retailer, it sells simvastatin at $12/3 months, which, given the normal cost of about $20/month at other online stores, should allow payoff of the membership...
# 2 of 2
February 14, 2010 12:56 (EST)
Larry Baruch
You should also consider tablet splitting of medication with multiple tablet strengths- for example any of the branded or unbranded statins are generally flat priced. As an example if you are taking Liptior 40 ask your physician to write you for Lipitor 80 and cut it in half. Tablet splitting can also be effectively implemented when prescribing ezetimibe or Vyotrin, as we and others have shown that 5 milligrams of ezetimibe provides almost the equivalent LDL lowering as 10 milligrams.

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About Dr Seth Bilazarian
Seth Bilazarian MD has been a Clinical and Interventional Cardiologist at Pentucket Medical Associates in Massachusetts since 1993. He is board certified in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine, Nuclear Cardiology, Vascular Ultrasound, Interventional Cardiology, and Vascular and Endovascular Medicine.

Dr Bilazarian performs coronary and peripheral interventions at Lahey Clinic and Massachusetts General Hospital. He has been an investigator in the interventional laboratory for new devices including drug-eluting stents, distal protection devices, imaging devices (OCT and InfraRed), and anticoagulant pharmacotherapy.

Dr Bilazarian is an active participant in clinical trials in congestive heart failure, hypertension, coronary disease prevention, prediabetes management, anemia, atrial fibrillation, and anticoagulation/antiplatelet therapies in the outpatient setting. He has authored numerous papers and book chapters in clinical cardiology. He was appointed as a physician advisor to the circulatory device panel of the FDA in 2008.
About this blog
My intent is to create a forum for dialogue on issues pertinent to private practice cardiology around topics such as:

  • Integration of new data and guidelines on inpatient and outpatient practice in clinical and interventional cardiology
  • Practice approaches to the extra clinical issues in dealing with managed care insurers
  • Strategies for navigating the restrictions of pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs) on pharmacologic therapies for our patients
  • Experiences with restrictions on testing and imaging
The video blog (VLOG) will provide an opportunity to share broadly different approaches to the common conundrums we face in caring for patients. My hope is that this forum will provide useful data points for practice outside of tertiary and academic centers and a look inside community hospitals and physician?s practice patterns in the office, starting with mine.