Dirty Laundry: Drug Formulary Exclusions

Figure. Detail of Dirty Laundry: Drug Formulary Exclusions

Caption

Pharmacy benefit managers contracted by health insurance companies create lists or “formularies” of preferred medications they cover. In this artwork, information from such formulary lists supplied the source of the text. This practice of charging patients the full cost for medications, devices, or monitoring aids that are excluded from their health insurance companies’ coverage plans undermines decision-making partnerships between physicians and patients. An ethically relevant irony explored here is that in the United States we seem to have more choice about, and access to, breakfast cereals and assault rifles than needed medications.