Copayment on Drug Prescription and its Influence on Patient Behaviour – a Croatian Example

Abstract

The objective of this research is to examine the effects of the changes in medication copayment on prescription with reference to patient support program on a Croatian example. The authors analyse the effects of increasing or introducing copayment to prescription of medicines. The findings show that the introduction of copayment, if the medicine has a generic parallel which is free of charge, noticeably reduces the prescribed volume of medicine for which the copayment was introduced. There has been an observed patients’ compliance and it has been shown on the Croatian example that a decrease of copayment through patient support program causes increase in compliance.