Primary Nonadherence to Statin Medications in a Managed Care Organization

BACKGROUND: Primary nonadherence to a medication occurs when a drug is prescribed but the patient fails to pick the prescription up from the pharmacy. Managed care organizations that provide integrated care using electronic medical records (EMR) are an ideal setting to study primary nonadherence. OBJECTIVE: To identify patient and provider characteristics that are significantly associated with primary nonadherence to statin medications compared with a population of patients who picked up their first statin order. METHODS: This was a retrospective cohort study of patients with a new statin prescription. Patients with a new order for a statin prescription between December 1, 2009, and February 28, 2010, were eligible. A statin order was considered new if the patient had no statin prescriptions in the previous 12 months. Study participants were 24 years and older with 12 months of continuous membership prior to the statin order. Patients were defined as primary nonadherent if they did not pick up their new p...