One in 12 Americans Don’t Follow Prescription Medication Directions in Effort to Save Money

Fuse/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — New data provided by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in 12 Americans choose not to take prescription medication as directed to save money.

Eight percent of Americans, the CDC says, do not take prescription medicine as directed in an effort to save money. An even larger 15 percent said they have asked their physician for a lower-cost medication than what was prescribed for them.

The CDC also notes that alternative cost-reducing strategies including alternative drug therapy and purchase of prescription drugs from another country were also tactics employed by between 1.5 percent and 4.2 percent of American adults.

Adults between the ages of 18 and 64 were nearly twice as likely — 8.5 percent to 4.4 percent — to report not taking medicines as prescribed as seniors were, a figure that jumped when looking at uninsured adults.

Perhaps just as staggering is almost 20 percent of the $263 billion spent on prescription drugs each year in the U.S. was paid for out of pocket.

Follow @ABCNewsRadio
Copyright © 2015, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.