It may not be long before you start seeing signs of a brand new health campaign being rolled out by Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield. The company seeks to shed light on an easily preventable medical issue that affects those who take medication.
Not taking your prescribed medication as directed by your physician could kill you. 75 percent of all doctor visits end with the doctor prescribing some sort of medication, but not all people follow what the doctor says. Excellus Regional president Arthur Vercillo says this can make it harder for the doctor to fix what ails you.
Every Physician has the experience of thinking their patient has been taking their medications, and you scratch your head because the patient hasn’t responded to the medication the way you thought they should.
The American Heart Association says poor medication adherence takes the life of 125 thousand people every year and costs the health care system 300 billion additional dollars in follow-up visits and hospitalizations. Excellus is combatting this with a Take as Directed campaign to teach people the importance of following medication guidelines. The Onondaga County Commissioner of Health Cynthia Morrow says people might slack on medications due to financial constraints or even negative side effects.
If you’re not feeling sick, it’s hard to be motivated to take your pills every day. We require people who have TB—who have latent TB that are not sick, they just have been infected, they don’t have active disease—we ask them to take nine months of a medication every day for something they don’t feel and that’s hard to do.
Morrow says your physician or pharmacist can help you find a medication plan that works with your lifestyle. Vercillo was not sure exactly how the campaign was going to be publicized, but said he expected to see billboards and advertisements hitting local media outlets soon.