Playing with Medicine Quantity:

There have been patients who, in their quest to get well sooner, pop up twice the number of prescribed pills. Check the below chart by Sheetal Pasrija, prepared at Consumer Health Information Corporation.

Percent of Patients Taking Less Medication Than Prescribed

Stopping medication before running out of it 29%

Don’t take full amount of medication prescribed 22%

Don’t fill the medication prescribed 12%

Reasons for taking less medication than prescribed may vary from cutting medication costs to lack of insurance on prescribed drugs. Patients with conditions like blood pressure have been known to suffer from organ failures due to avoiding medications. Besides, they end up spending much more on a visit to the ICU than they could possible save from avoiding or delaying medications.

Adjusting Medication Schedule:

Patients have been known to take medicines at the wrong time. Sometimes, they forget to take the before-your-lunch medicine. Out of guilt or remembrance, they take it after their lunch. Some of those pills can affect your health badly.

You are supposed to take medicines only as per the prescribed timings. Never forget that.

One of the ways you can maintain your medicine log, could be a physical piece of paper on which you write down the timings and follow it. Another could be to maintain a voice log using automated IVR service. But these are complex or impractical ideas which seldom work in real life. You can also take up medicine reminder services that call you at the time of your medication to remind.

Over-The-Counter (OTC) Medications

In the United States, the manufacture and sale of OTC substances is regulated by the Food and Drug Administration. Many patients have shown a tendency to purchase over the counter alternative medicines. States such as Mississippi, Oregon and Illinois have passed state regulations to control the OTC of drugs such as pseudoephedrine. Again, some OTC drugs include emergency contraceptives and supposed to be sold based on ID verification to 17+ women consumers.

Sale or purchase of OTC medications is supposed to be done safely in a regulated environment. Patients are advised to become aware of these regulations or at least have correct information to follow, such that can be obtained easily on the FDA site.

Medication Adherence PanHealth Reminder Services By PanHealth New Jersey USA

What factors make it easy for the patients to take their medicines regularly. Can it be said that some patients tend to be more medically compliant than others?

If yes, then PanHealth is trying to put some pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together in this post.

Patient History

Practitioners and some academicians believe that patients with some medical history are more likely to be medically compliant.

Meaning, you might more regularly take medicines if you have taken in past.

Physician Involvement

Some physicians tend to show better patient management skills. They exhibit a positive attitude towards patients. The factors more likely to be associated with better adherence also include a positive relation with the physician. Counseling skills of a doctor tend to influence the patient and her relatives towards achieving better adherence.

Peer Pressure

Being a part of a similar-ailment-community almost always plays a significant role in patient adherence. Peer groups or focus communities help in cheering up patients and play support role in improving medicine adherence.

Family Pressure

Perhaps the most significant factor in medicine adherence is family pressure. It is very critical factor in adherence or non-adherence.

Patients whose families care and put pressure for taking regular medicines generally show better results in adherence

Financial Reasons

Stingy monthly budgets tend to put some pressure if medication costs are too high, which generally are. This is another major contributor to the impact on medication adherence

Patients tend to curtail medicine intake due to financial constraints and this almost always results in lower adherence numbers

Access to Medicine

If you stay far from hospitals or pharmacy, then you should be either very diligent in tracking and maintaining your medicine stocks.

PanHealth wants to improve medication adherence so that society is happier. Join us in this mission.

Select Your Reminder Method:

• IVR voice call automated medicine reminders
• SMS reminders
• Smart Pill Box Device based medication reminder management
• Web based medication management
• Smartphone – Android, iPhone and Windows smart services

Steps to Purchase Medication Reminders:

1. Register as a patient in PanHealth
2. Go to Purchase Reminders
3. Select medication reminder timing, method, frequency, and other options
4. Purchase reminders