Splitting pills backed by insurer Buying higher doses can save money

MILWAUKEE, Wis. – Chopping his Lipitor tablets in half gives Randy Schneider a little thrill.

“I kind of chuckle when I do this,” said the 41-year-old line worker at a cheese factory. “It’s like I’m making good money per minute if you figure it out.”

Schneider saves about $31 for a six-month supply because double-strength pills don’t cost much more than single-strength ones. It takes him 10 minutes to cut the 90 pills in two, and he gets the same supply of cholesterol medicine for less money.

Now the nation’s second-largest health insurer, UnitedHealthcare, is getting behind the practice, giving away pill-splitters and providing advice on which drugs safely can be cut in half.

It is offering half-price on drugs for those who split double-strength pills, cutting the patient’s insurance copayment in half as well.

“It has the potential for meaningful savings,” said Tim Heady, CEO of UnitedHealth Pharmaceutical Solutions, a division of UnitedHealthcare, based in Edina, Minn.

“For every patient that chooses to reduce their costs by 50 percent, it would reduce ours and their employer’s cost by half of the cost of that prescription as well,” he said. “The question is how many consumers would be willing to participate.”

Seniors have split pills to cut costs with the help of their doctors and pharmacists for years. But recently insurers have promoted it as studies have shown it can save massive amounts on purchasing drugs – a key driver of increased premiums.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said in November it managed to save $46.5 million a year by having 1.1 million patients split one cholesterol drug alone – Zocor.

The Regence Group, a health insurer operating in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Utah, saves $5 million a year through pill-splitting, which it began promoting 18 months ago.

The practice helps contain costs as newer, more expensive drugs replace older, cheaper ones and as people take more and more medicine, said Regence’s vice president of pharmacy services, David Clark.

“With all those pressures [that tend] to increase pharmaceutical costs, this is one of the elements that reduces those pressures,” Clark said.

UnitedHealthcare began its voluntary program across Wisconsin on June 1, sending out letters to 10,500 patients to promote it. The insurer plans to take it nationwide for 12.5 million drug benefit subscribers before year’s end, Heady said.

Among the 15 pills the insurer recommends splitting are expensive cholesterol drugs such as Lipitor, antidepressants such as Zoloft, and blood pressure pills such as Aceon and Diovan.