Publications by authors named "Michael Bedard"
Article Synopsis
- Eliminating out-of-pocket costs for medications may significantly reduce total health care spending, especially for patients with financial barriers to adherence.
- A study conducted in Ontario involved 747 adults who had previously struggled to afford their medications, tracking their health care costs over three years.
- The results showed that those who received free medications had lower median health care costs of $1,641, indicating that addressing medication affordability can lead to overall savings in health care expenses.
Cash transfer during the COVID-19 pandemic: a multicentre, randomised controlled trial.
Fam Med Community Health
December 2021
Objective: To evaluate the effect of a one-time cash transfer of $C1000 in people who are unable to physically distance due to insufficient income.
Design: Open-label, multi-centre, randomised superiority trial.
Setting: Seven primary care sites in Ontario, Canada; six urban sites associated with St.
Background: Adherence to medicines is low for a variety of reasons, including the cost borne by patients. Some jurisdictions publicly fund medicines for the general population, but many jurisdictions do not, and such policies are contentious. To our knowledge, no trials studying free access to a wide range of medicines have been conducted.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImportance: Nonadherence to treatment with medicines is common globally, even for life-saving treatments. Cost is one important barrier to access, and only some jurisdictions provide medicines at no charge to patients.
Objective: To determine whether providing essential medicines at no charge to outpatients who reported not being able to afford medicines improves adherence.