Impact of consumer fees on drug utilisation.

A review of research on consumer fees for drugs and drug utilisation suggests that the demand for drugs tends to be quite insensitive to consumer fees. Although higher consumer fees are associated with slightly reduced rates of drug utilisation, use of most other medical services is not meaningfully affected and health status has not been shown to be adversely affected. The larger impact of consumer fees demonstrated in the published literature is to shift drug costs from third parties to consumers. Since much of the literature is limited to insurance programmes with quite small consumer fees, the generalisability of results may be limited. Ability-to-pay and health needs may also be important considerations in the relationship between use and fees for particular drugs.