Mental Health and the Cost Effectiveness of Pharmacogenomics
Depression and anxiety costs $1 trillion to the global economy annually and has become one of America’s most costly illnesses. More than half of patients with depression don’t respond to their first medication and 30% don’t respond to two or more medications. As the number of failed medication trials increases, the probability of the patient achieving response or remission decreases.
Mental health also has a major impact on employers. This can be broken down into absenteeism – when employees don’t show up to work, and presenteeism – when employees show up for work, but don’t actually do anything at work. Stress-related absenteeism costs employers $1685 per employee each year – a cost that has risen over the last few years. People diagnosed with depression will miss an average of 19 days of work per year. Presenteeism costs businesses 10 times more than absenteeism as employees are unproductive on the job for 57.5 days each year.
Pharmacogenomics (PGx) has been proven in many different studies to be cost saving. A study concerning depression treatment attributed $3962 per patient in annual savings because of preemptive PGx testing. Because so many people don’t react to the first medication prescribed, it has been proven that initiating PGx guided medication in the first place can result in better outcomes and reduced overall costs.
Preemptive PGx panel testing has also been proven to be cost effective in cardiovascular disease management. One important factor in determining whether or not the test is cost saving is the price of the test. The “break even” price where the cost of the test will equate to the savings from the test over a one year time horizon is $595. The test also becomes more cost effective over a longer time horizon.
MatchMyMeds™ covers anti-anxiety, anti-depression, cardiovascular drugs, and much more and can be purchased online for $275 USD/$349 CAD. At a price much lower than the cost saving break even price, and the fact that the test covers much more than just mental health, MatchMyMeds™ can save you a lot more in the long run than these studies have already shown is possible.
Brandon Lustig
Statistician
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