Can Managed Care Manage Polypharmacy?

Polypharmacy has come to mean the inappropriate use of multiple medications. Polypharmacy can occur as a result of a range of situations, including the excessive application of clinical guidelines, lack of coordination among multiple prescribers, treating adverse drug events, misaligned medications across transitions of care, patient self-treatment, and inappropriate overtreatment. Polypharmacy is a problem because the benefits of a specific medication at the dose and frequency that an individual patient is taking are often outweighed by the costs. These costs can be financial; however, they may place a greater burden when they lead to unrealized benefits or adverse clinical effects.