The retail cost of diabetes medications, most notably insulin, has risen dramatically over the past decade, creating a serious problem for the many patients who, despite being insured, are increasingly faced with unexpected high costs at the pharmacy. Too many patients are unable to reasonably afford life sustaining medications, leading to noncompliance with their health care plan and eventually poor health outcomes.In response to this challenge and to better understand the barriers to patient access to insulin, DLC convened a roundtable in Washington DC on November 11, 2016, comprised of patient advocacy groups, health care professionals, industry leaders, patient advocates and key opinion leaders. While this is a very complex issue, the goal was to better understand the scope of the issue and the various patient profiles for those patients experiencing the greatest obstacles in obtaining their insulin.The report summary and slides are provided here. The short answer is that approximately 57% of people using insulin are exposed to list price at the pharmacy counter at some point during the year. That explains why the noise level is rising. There are a lot of people impacted.
