The Effects of Off-label Drug Use on Disability and Medical Expenditure / Katharina E. Blankart, Frank R. Lichtenberg.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Blankart, Katharina E.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Lichtenberg, Frank R.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w30440.

NBER working paper series no. w30440

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

Does using prescription drugs off-label increase disability and medical expenditure? This paper uses a unique dataset to evaluate off-label vs. on-label drug use in the US non-institutionalized population. Patients using drugs off-label have on average $515 higher medical expenditure and work-loss cost. Pharmaceutical innovation has direct and indirect effects on off-label drug use. Market size is indicative of the fraction of treatments used off-label. Our findings have implications for regulation and welfare. We address endogeneity issues by demonstrating that patients with higher disease severity do not experience higher off-label uses and by controlling for unobserved individual and condition effects.

Notes:

Print version record

September 2022.