Physician Follow-up and Provider Continuity Are Associated With Long-term Medication Adherence

Abstract

Physicians should be aware that statin use is dynamic and that many patients have long periods of nonadherence. A follow-up visit with the physician who wrote the initial statin prescription and having a cholesterol test predicted reinitiation of statin therapy. Our results suggest that continuity of care combined with increased follow-up and cholesterol testing could promote long-term adherence by shortening or eliminating long gaps in statin use. This hypothesis should be confirmed in a randomized experiment.