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Schizophrenia is associated with a significant economic burden where, in addition to direct health care costs, indirect and non-health care costs are strong contributors, suggesting that therapies should aim at improving not only symptom control but also cognition and functional performance, which are associated with substantial non-health care and indirect costs.

Treatment adherence is associated with better clinical and economic outcomes including lower risks for MS-related hospitalization, MS relapse, and less MS-related medical costs. Treatments that require infrequent administrations and have favorable adherence profiles may benefit patients who are unable to adhere to DMT therapies. Such treatments may be important in improving disease outcomes and may be suitable therapeutic candidates for the management of MS.

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OBJECTIVESeveral second-generation antipsychotic (SGA) drugs have been associated with weight gain, hyperglycemia, and dyslipidemia. We evaluated whether glucose and lipid testing increased after the American Diabetes Association (ADA) consensus statement recommending metabolic monitoring for SGA-treated patients.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSLaboratory claims for serum glucose and lipid testing were identified for an incident cohort of 18,876 adults initiating SGA drugs in a U.S. commercial health plan (2001–2006) and a control group of 56,522 adults with diabetes not receiving antipsychotics. Interrupted time-series models were used to estimate the effect of ADA recommendations on baseline and annual testing trends after adjusting for differences in age, sex, mental health diagnoses, and cardiovascular risk using propensity score matching.RESULTSMean baseline testing rates for SGA-treated patients during the study period were 23% (glucose) and 8% (lipids). Among persistent users of SGA medication, annual testing rates were 38% (glucose) and 23% (lipid). Before the ADA statement, screening rates for SGA-treated patients were increasing (glucose: baseline 3.6% per year, annual 7.2% per year; lipid: baseline 1.2% per year, annual 4.8% per year; P < 0.001 for each trend). Increases were similar to background testing trends in control subjects. The ADA statement was not associated with an increase in screening rates.CONCLUSIONSIn a commercially insured population, glucose and lipid testing for SGA-treated adults was infrequent. A gradual increase in screening rates occurred over the 6-year period, but the changes were not temporally associated with the ADA statement. More effort is needed to improve diabetes and dyslipidemia screening in these at-risk patients.