Revealed preference for community and mail service pharmacy.

OBJECTIVE: To determine revealed pharmacy preference and predictors among patients enrolled in a pharmacy benefit that offered a 90-day supply of prescriptions via mail service and community pharmacy channels, with no differences in out-of-pocket costs.
DESIGN: Retrospective cohort study.
SETTING: United States in 2008-09. PATIENTS: 324,968 commercially insured participants enrolled in plans that required use of mail service pharmacy for maintenance medications. INTERVENTION: Implementation of a pharmacy benefit design with optional use of either mail service or community pharmacy for 90-day supply prescriptions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Selection rates of mail service and community pharmacy and adjusted odds ratios for predicting community pharmacy for selected characteristics.
RESULTS: In the first 4 months of the benefit design, 31.8% of participants previously mandated to use mail service pharmacy elected to fill 90-day prescriptions at community pharmacies. Selection of community pharmacy ranged from a low of 23.7% (previous mail service pharmacy users) to 66.3% (previous community pharmacy users). Among those initiating therapy, 44.3% selected community pharmacy for their new prescriptions, and among those with no previous mail use, 68% selected community pharmacy for new prescriptions. Preference for community/mail service pharmacy was dependent on numerous characteristics, including age, gender, household income, region, driving distance (time), and concomitant medication use.
CONCLUSION: Patient behavior indicates that certain patients prefer to access prescription medications via mail service and others through community pharmacy channels. Restrictive benefit designs that incentivize patients to use less preferable pharmacy channels may adversely affect patient convenience, which could have the unintended consequence of reducing medication use and adherence.