Free drugs can help prevent repeat heart attacks ...lessons being learned...

by your health insurance sociopath. Yep ...they actually make/save more money by giving you your meds for free. The only problem is that even then some will not take their meds. This is a huge DOH! on the health insurance corporations. Yes that's right ...if you give heart meds to a heart attack patient he/she may not return with complications which cost the insurance corporations more. Of course you can apply the same lesson learned to various other health problems that insurance corporations have to pay for.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igQwatYx856uixdtjlzctHBVJu-w?docId=f4499fb7e9cf4b26b1ac16d5ee2a876a

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Say you've had a heart attack and your insurer offered you free medicines to help prevent another one. Doctors did that in a major study and were stunned to find that only about half of patients took them.

Those who did suffered fewer heart-related problems and saved $500 on average for health care over roughly a year. And it didn't cost the insurer more; in fact, costs were trending lower because of fewer hospitalizations.

"People don't get as sick, and it's people getting sick that costs the most money," said Dr. Lonny Reisman, an author on the study and chief medical officer for Aetna, one of its sponsors.

I worked with HIV positive patients years ago and I educated them about the importance of compliance - over and over and over. Every visit.

Anti-retrovirals, if not taken exactly as prescribed (a dose missed every now and then, drug holidays for a few days) can give the virus enough time to become resistant. There were always those patients who just didn't take them, even knowing the consequences. Many didn't care, others were just simply overwhelmed by their diseas to remember to take their meds and didn't have a support system to help.

Even free, some STILL didn't take them. I remember one guy told me how every time he takes them it reminds him of his disease and how it makes him depressed. He would only take them during the week but felt justified in taking the weekends off so he didn't have to think about it.

There's a lot of psychological stuff going on....some diabetics think the same way. When there are no symptoms with the disease, it's easier to be in denial.

it's just that they forget to comply. I have ADD, which causes me to forget to eat or take my meds. I have to make a real effort in order to figure out a way that I don't forget. And, on top of that, I can take a pill and not remember if I took it a few minutes later.

A system has to be worked out that works for people to remember, which is why I started to use those little pill things with the days marked on them. But, with taking meds sometimes 3 times a day, even that system breaks down once in a while.

zalinda

for thre week in the little containers marked with each day.

Insurance company logic.