Cigna lowers copay on cholesterol drug Lipitor

In recent times, we've been telling you that patients are not only avoiding elective procedures, but sometimes skipping prescribed medications to save money; apparently health insurer Cigna has been paying attention to the trend.

Cigna announced that it has reduced its copays for Lipitor by up to 50 percent, with a new average of $15. This has the immediate benefit of making the medication more easily affordable to patients dealing with an economic recession.

The long-term benefit for Cigna is that this will encourage more patients to take Lipitor, which is getting close to the end of its patent protection. With patients used to taking Lipitor, Cigna will be able to take advantage of the availability of generic drugs to save more money, analysts say.

To learn more about the copayment changes:
- read this Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report piece [1]

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Express Scripts, Cigna agree to $27M "drug switching" settlement [3]
Lipitor struggle key to debate on generics [4]
Drugmakers agree to six-month DTC delay [5]