Who should care about this topic...consumers, nurses or both?

The difference between generic and trade name drugs is very slim. They both contain the same active ingredients, the same dosage, the same route of administering the drug. The small differences are the inactive ingredients, which can be the way the tablet looks or the size of the tablet, and how much the generic version costs. The generic versions are always cheaper than the brand name version. The question is, which one is really better for you? Which one should we buy? Is there really a difference as far as the effect the drug has on the patient that we have to buy the brand name rather than the generic name?

These are all important questions and probably all questions that a person asks themselves every time they go to the pharmacy and hear the price of their prescription or see the difference in prices on the over the counter medications. But who should really care about all of these questions? Should the consumer care? How about the nurses? Or do you think they should both care?

 

In my opinion, I feel like they both should care. I feel that the consumer wants to be aware that they are about to spend a lot of money on the medications that they have been prescribed to take. I know from experience that some of the medications I have been given before have an outrageous cost! A few months ago, I had to go see the dermatologist for some sun spots that were showing up on my skin. I wanted to be sure it was nothing serious. At the end of my appointment, she prescribed me a shampoo to use in the shower and a topical cream to put on after taking a shower. I went to the pharmacy to get them filled and when they were ready, she told me the price and I nearly passed out. For the topical cream, it was $235 for the SMALL bottle! I would hate to see the price of the big bottle! Luckily the nurse I had at the dermatologist office had given me a coupon so I didn’t have to pay more than $25 for it. In this position, I feel like the nurse cared about how much I was going to have to spend on this medication to help my skin. She sure did care enough to give me the coupon. If she didn’t, she could have kept the fact that they had the coupons there a secret and I would have had to pay a lot of money.

Here is a link to a journal that shows a survey done by three medical doctors from the Division of Geriatrics at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California: What's in a Name? This evidence shows that usually physicians will prescribe the brand name drug rather than the generic name (if the drug has a generic name) 79% of the time. This causes an excess in health care costs of an estimated $8.8 billion that is unnecessary when they could prescribe the generic name instead. It explains how some physicians use the brand name because they are easier to remember. If I was a physician, I would not be greedy and I would help my patient out by remembering the generic names too and prescribing them if they are available because everyone knows that patients are already spending a lot on health care. Why should we have to pay a lot more on prescriptions too?

In other aspects of the medicine, as far as the effect of the medication, I still feel that both should care about the topic of generic versus trade name drugs. Some people may not purchase the generic name medications because they feel that they will not work as well as the brand name drugs. But like I mentioned above, they all are required by the FDA to have the same active ingredients and same dosage requirements. Therefore, they would all have the same effect on the patient right? I would think so. But there are articles that have proven otherwise. In this article out of the magazine Neurology Now, there is an example of the drug phenytoin (Dilantin) that is an anti-seizure medication. Neurology Now Article. It tells how naybe the effects of using the generic version over the brand name can affect the patient in bad ways and is not worth saving the money if it is going to cost you even more money if you end up having to go to the emergency room or something. I would hope that the nurse would care enough about this topic to let the consumer or patient know that there could possibly be two different effects in regards to using the brand name or the generic name drug and which one would be the best to use for their condition.

Another problem with brand name and generic name drugs is prescribing errors. Different pharmacies carry different drugs under other names than the one that the physician may have prescribed. Also, some doctors may remember the medicines by different names than the other doctor the patient went to if they switched physicians for some reason. This could cause harmful problems to the patient if this is not caught. You see television ads all the time about ’if you have taken this medication please contact us so we can help you’. Watch this video explaining the harmful effects that prescription errors can have: Drug Name Confusion

Wrapping it up, I truly believe that both the consumer and the nurse should be worried about the many different topics having to do with generic and trade name drugs. It is very important on both sides for many different reasons. How about you? What is your opinion on the subject of who should care about the different types of drugs?

 

Resources: embedded within the article