medications is jeopardized which can result in patient resistance to medications and health problems that involve costly emergency room visits or hospitalizations. From a Medicaid cost perspective, while HIV medications are expensive, a 2006 study by Chen, Accortt, and Westfall clearly demonstrated that HIV patients with low CD4+ counts require approximately $20,000 more in annual health care when compared to HIV patients with healthy CD4+ counts (Chen RY, Accortt NA, Westfall AO, et al. Distribution of health care expenditures for HIV-infected patients. Clin Infect Dis. 2006;42:1003-1010.). Medicaid has a financial interest in supporting health care strategies that keep HIV patients healthy. Quick access to the full collection of current and emerging HIV medications is essential to this goal. Medication resistance and poor medication adherence can cause unnecessary disease progression with costly hospitalizations and emergency room visits. Given these important considerations, the best Medicaid strategy to keep HIV costs as low as possible is to keep the HIV drug class off the PDL. I hope you will concur and remove HIV from PDL consideration. Sincerely,
(Name/Title) (Organization)
Examples have been provided by advocacy and professional societies and have been de-identified. For illustrative purposes only.
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