Atypical Antipsychotic Drugs for Schizophrenia: Access, Reimbursement and the Struggle for Parity

Abstract

This paper discusses the impact of schizophrenia on American society and advocates for health care reform to address the lack of access by the mentally ill to a class of innovative drugs, called “atypical anti-psychotics.†Atypical anti-psychotic drugs, including clozapine, risperidone and olanzapine are crucial for the treatment of both the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia and should be made available as first-line treatments for schizophrenics. Current health care policies and reforms provide facially attractive benefits, but lack significant practical benefits, resulting in obstacles to access to these life-changing medications. Health care reforms providing adequate reimbursement for these medications, and thereby opening access to them on a first-line basis, would in fact relieve financial pressures on our health care system instead of creating further strain on scarce resources by reducing funds spent on hospitalization and other medical resources.