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There are many factors a physician considers when deciding which antibiotic to place patients on when treating infections, but the cost of the drug is often not a consideration.
But now Colquitt Regional Medical Center’s laboratory has developed a report physicians can utilize to determine the cost of the various drugs effective in treating the infection. The cost difference can be significant, ranging from $3.45 to $184.92 per day.
The antibiotic pricing report, which is one of the initiatives Colquitt Regional has implemented to reduce medical costs, resulted from a suggestion by orthopedic surgeon Dr. D.Q. Harris who had recently called a pharmacy to compare prices and found a wide range.
Dr. Harris said he had a patient who needed an antibiotic and didn’t have money to afford an expensive drug, so he called the pharmacy to compare prices. He said it took awhile to look them up and get the prices, but the difference in prices led him to believe physicians should have the information more readily available.
“We all care about costs,” he said. “If we knew the costs and we had two drugs that are effective, we would choose the least costly one.”
The Colquitt Regional Laboratory compiled the pricing information and incorporated it into their Microbiology Reports, which physicians use to prescribe drugs.
When a patient sample is cultured and grows an organism, a sensitivity panel is performed. The report generated from the sensitivity panel includes the name of the organism and a list of antibiotics that will be effective in killing it. In most cases, organisms are sensitive to more than one antibiotic. Using the new report, physicians will not only know which antibiotics will be effective but the prices of each.
Linda Mead, MT (ASCP), director of Colquitt Regional’s laboratory, says the pricing information on the reports will save more than money.
“The benefit of having the antibiotic cost on the sensitivity report is a savings of both time and money,” she said. “The physician can now see what antibiotic the patient will respond to and also be able to choose the most reasonably priced. If a patient is equally able to respond to several antibiotics, the least expensive choice can now be made without going to several different sources for this information