{"id":93938,"date":"2019-05-17T19:59:07","date_gmt":"2019-05-18T01:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-fights-high-prescription-drug-costs-and-wins\/"},"modified":"2019-05-17T19:59:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T01:59:07","slug":"man-fights-high-prescription-drug-costs-and-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/man-fights-high-prescription-drug-costs-and-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Man fights high prescription drug costs, and wins"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"David
David Holub\/Special to the Herald<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Durango resident Robert Harlan had back surgery in 2014 at Mercy Regional Medical Center.<\/p>\n

He has Medicare and supplemental insurance, so he didn\u2019t expect to owe anything on the medical procedure, he said. If Mercy planned to charge him, he asked to be informed ahead of time. The hospital staff didn\u2019t mention anything about medication charges, so he left believing he was in the clear.<\/p>\n

But shortly after his surgery, Harlan received a bill for $321 from Mercy. It did not include a breakdown of charges.<\/p>\n

When he requested a breakdown, he found his charges included $43.19 for two 5 mg oxycodone tablets, $76.90 for two more 5 mg oxycodone tablets and $79.76 for one celecoxib tablet, a pain medication, according to his bill.<\/p>\n

\"Harlan\"
Harlan<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cMy thought was, \u2018They are ripping me off,\u2019\u201d said Harlan, a former prosecuting attorney.<\/p>\n

The cost of prescription medications has risen dramatically in recent years, leading patients and others to call for change.<\/p>\n

Medication prices can be particularly high for hospital patients.<\/p>\n

A nationwide survey showed the amount spent on drugs in community hospitals increased from $468.50 to $555.40 per patient admission between 2015 and 2017, according to a January report from American Society of Health-System Pharmacists<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The high costs have been driven, in part, by shortages of medications. As of March, 325 medications were in short supply, according to the association.<\/p>\n

Price-fixing by some major drug manufacturers may also play a role in the high prescription costs.<\/p>\n

A multistate lawsuit Colorado joined this week alleges that 20 generic drug manufacturers, such as Pfizer, conspired to fix drug prices for more than 100 different generic drugs.<\/p>\n

In 2013 and 2014, these companies raised drug prices by 448%, according to the Colorado Attorney General\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Harlan said he was grossly overcharged for his pain pills at Mercy.<\/p>\n

At the time, a single pain pill equivalent to the oxycodone he received would have been 44 cents at Walmart, he said. Currently, an equivalent 80 mg pain pill costs $6, according to the Connecticut Center for Prevention, Wellness and Recovery, a group by the state\u2019s health department.<\/p>\n

Some of the difference between a medication in a hospital and at a pharmacy may be attributed to the expense of doctors and nurses who administer medication, hospital equipment and costs related to ensuring quality patient care, said Julie Lonborg, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Hospital Association<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Harlan said he didn\u2019t expect the bill because he asked to be informed of anything Medicare wouldn\u2019t cover, and hospital staff didn\u2019t tell him about potential medication charges. Harlan has Medicare and supplemental insurance, so he shouldn\u2019t owe anything on medical procedures, he said.<\/p>\n

He studied Medicare policy and learned medications taken by mouth are not covered in an outpatient setting. But, he said he was not informed of the Medicare policy up front, which is not in compliance with Mercy\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n

When he met with Mercy officials in 2016 about his charges, they agreed to drop the charges after he threatened to sue, Harlan said.<\/p>\n

However, before his bill was dropped, he was hounded by collections notifications on a daily basis. He described the collections methods as \u201cdraconian.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThey are setting you up to ultimately collapse and pay the bill,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Patients agree to be contacted by a live person, text message, pre-recorded message and other methods when they consent to receive medical treatment, according to Mercy\u2019s consent form.<\/p>\n

Mercy spokeswoman Sarah Silvernail declined to comment about Harlan\u2019s care, even though he offered to sign a release form to allow the hospital to discuss his medical care.<\/p>\n

Silvernail said the hospital is required by Medicare to inform patients about the costs of medications they receive in an outpatient setting. Patients must sign forms acknowledging they understand those rules, she wrote in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Harlan said his own high charges are part of a larger problem with the high cost of prescription drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really have capitalism working against us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Patients with similar experiences started Patients for Affordable Drugs<\/a>, a national nonprofit, to help advocate for lower prices. They would like to see hospitals be held accountable for high markups of medications and manufacturers lower list prices, said Juliana Keeping, a spokeswoman for the group in an email.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire supply chain is a black box; it\u2019s impossible to know who is making money and how much,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Harlan is starting a similar nonprofit to advocate for lower prices called Patients for Fair Medical Charges.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe others are being taken advantage of, mostly because they don\u2019t understand how things work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Those interested in joining may email Harlan at patientsforfairmedicalcharges@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

mshinn@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

soar, residents and elected officials take a stand<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":93939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[209,3131,1961],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-93938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-hospital-and-clinic","tag-prescription-drugs","tag-private-health-care"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93938"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=93938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}