What is medication non-adherence?

Medication non-adherence is when a physician or advance level provider prescribes a medication to a patient and, for a number of reasons, they, ah, do not keep up with the therapy. There are a number of reasons why patients have medication non-adherence. Sometimes it can be cost, so some medications can be very expensive, so patients have a high out of pocket deductible. And because of that, they don’t want to tell the provider they can’t afford the medicines, so they just don’t take the medications. Ah, sometimes it can be side effects, can cause medication non-adherence, ah so people take medicines and they feel bad, ah so they just stop taking the medications. Sometimes they try and cut the dosage down on their, on their own. Um, we generally discourage these, if the patient has problems with medicines and they don’t take it, it’s best to go back to your provider and say, “The medicine is too expensive, I had some bad side effects from it, um, can we look at changing to a different treatment, ah, option.” And there are so many different medications that are available, that providers should be able to find an alternative for the patient.