Improving Scheduling and Reducing Costs of Psychotropic Drugs for Outpatients

In prescribing psychotropic medications for outpatients, physicians frequently follow the pattern used for inpatients, which requires taking medication three or more times a day. Such a schedule is not only inconvenient, but the cost of medication is considerably more than if it were prescribed in larger doses twice a day. The authors report on a study at Boston State Hospital that found almost 39 per cent of the prescriptions for psychotropic drugs could be revised without changing the total daily milligrams of medication, resulting in considerable savings.