This is a study done crunching numbers from a division of UnitedHealthcare (I am guessing Ingenix) and pharmacy benefit manager Prescription Solutions, also owned by UnitedHealthcare.   The information in the study describes the fact that a senior given certain anti-psychotic drugs has a 32% higher chance of putting on imageweight and ultimately developing diabetes.  

Prescription Solutions is located in Costa Mesa, California and I’m sure we can look forward to additional number crunches here as the data folks go to work with additional queries and algorithms.  Back in February oncologists were sent reports by United which were a bit debated as far as accuracy according to some offices that received them.  

United HealthCare Sends Oncology Reports to Doctors – Assessing Cancer Treatment Rules Compiled by Ingenix

Come to think of it, will these be some of the patient identified on the claim mining project to identify those patients where United has Pay for Performance Benefits available for the Walgreens pharmacies and the YMCA that was announced a couple weeks ago for identifying patients who have the “potential” of developing diabetes?  BD 

UnitedHealthCare To Use Data Mining Algorithms On Claim Data To Look For Those At “Risk” of Developing Diabetes – Walgreens and the YMCA Benefit With Pay for Performance Dollars to Promote and Supply The Tools

However, in this retrospective study of 78,450 elderly patients without diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or diabetes, an association was demonstrated between study patients being on an atypical antipsychotic and starting a diabetic medication. This was demonstrated even though 97 percent of the study patients with AA fills had doses within recommended guidelines for the treatment of dementia.1 Elderly patients with at least one fill of an AA drug had 32-percent greater odds of starting a medication for diabetes within one year compared to similar patients without AA exposure.

"We are fortunate to have a wealth of retrospective data that helps us study the effects of medications on this growing population," said Joseph Addiego, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer, Prescription Solutions. "The message for physicians who may be prescribing atypical antipsychotics for the elderly is to be careful not to discount the risk of new-onset diabetes, even when prescribing these drugs in small doses."

Currently, AAs are widely used for off-label indications in the elderly for conditions such as dementia. Earlier studies may not have shown the same correlation between AAs and diabetes due to smaller study sample sizes or missing data.

The researchers were unable to account for differences in effects among the various atypical antipsychotics due to the small numbers of patients for each individual medication.

Insurance News - New Study Finds Off-Label Use of Atypical Antipsychotics Increases Risk of Diabetes Among the Elderly

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