Willingness to pay to standardize patient medication information

Abstract

ABSTRACT Pharmacists dispense prescription drugs with leaflets containing information about the specific medication a patient receives. These leaflets vary in format, length, content, and readability for the same prescription drug at different pharmacies; they also vary for different prescription drugs at the same pharmacy. Previous research has found that most patients prefer standardization of these leaflets; however, standardization is costly, and there are no published studies that estimate the value of such standardization to consumers. We use a contingent valuation survey to investigate consumer willingness to pay for standardized informational leaflets in the retail pharmacy setting. We present results of analyses based on contingent valuation responses of 510 federal government employees. The survey design was a double-bounded advisory referendum elicitation format where respondents were presented with examples of standardized and non-standardized prescription drug information formats. The study found the willingness to pay for standardized informational leaflets was approximately $1.37 per household per month. The estimated willingness to pay is sensitive to alternative econometric specifications, evidence of possible survey response bias; however, across all models, the estimates are statistically and economically significant.