Assessing the cost of albuterol inhalers in the Michigan and California Medicaid Programs: a total cost-of-care approach.

A study was conducted to determine whether the addition of albuterol inhalers to the Medicaid formulary of California would increase patient costs. Data on the treatment of asthma in 1,463 patients were obtained from the Michigan Medicaid formulary files for the period from July 1983 to December 1984. Annual inhalant costs for albuterol users were higher (+60.47) than for metaproterenol users (+47.66). However, the costs of additional asthma drugs and the total asthma drug costs were lower for the albuterol than metaproterenol users. Other asthma-related medical costs, including emergency-room and physician or clinic visits and days in hospital, were lower for the albuterol than metaproterenol users (+765 vs +1,135 per patient per year, P less than 0.05). These Michigan data were used to determine the costs in California. It was estimated that the addition of albuterol to the California Medicaid formulary would result in an annual per-patient saving of +3.46 in asthma medication and +521.33 in asthma-related medical costs.