Sunday House Call, #910, January 21, 2024: Sticking with your brand.

As insurance companies make it more difficult for patients to remain on brand-name medications that they have taken for decades, especially those on psychotropic medications, there is a work-around for some meds using the innovicares and viatrisoriginals cards. These make up most of the difference in cost between the brand-name and generic versions of the medications.

Your Calls and Comments:

  • How drug company TV advertising impacts physicians when they say “Ask you doctor”
  • Do generic versions of the anticoagulant drug Pradaxa and cyclosporin work just as well as the brand-name? Yes.
  • The lack of evidence for laser therapy to treat knee pain.
  • Pain after a rib injury. Why does it still hurt weeks later?
  • Can you use Ozempic if you have a history of bowel obstruction?