Journal article
Association Between Prior Authorization for Medications and Health Service Use by Medicaid Patients With Bipolar Disorder
Christine Y Lu, Alyce S Adams, Dennis Ross-Degnan, Fang Zhang, Yuting Zhang, Carl Salzman, Stephen B Soumerai
PSYCHIATRIC SERVICES | AMER PSYCHIATRIC PUBLISHING, INC | Published : 2011
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: This study examined the association between a Medicaid prior-authorization policy for second-generation antipsychotic and anticonvulsant agents and medication discontinuation and health service use by patients with bipolar disorder. METHODS: A pre-post design with a historical comparison group was used to analyze Maine Medicaid and Medicare claims data. A total of 946 newly treated patients were identified during the eight-month policy (July 2003-February 2004), and a comparison group of 1,014 was identified from the prepolicy period (July 2002-February 2003). Patients were stratified by number of visits to community mental health centers (CMHCs) before medication initiation (prox..
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Awarded by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Awarded by NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF MENTAL HEALTH
Funding Acknowledgements
This study was funded by grant 63213 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Changes in Health Care Financing and Organization Program (Dr. Soumerai, principal investigator) and was conducted at the Department of Population Medicine, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute. Dr. Lu acknowledges funding from a fellowship in pharmaceutical policy at Harvard Medical School and a Sir Keith Murdoch Fellowship from the American Australian Association. Dr. Adams' participation was supported by the Kaiser Permanente Northern California Community Benefit program. Dr. Ross-Degnan, Dr. F. Zhang, and Dr. Soumerai are investigators in the HMO Research Network Center for Education and Research in Therapeutics, which is supported by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.