Some insurance companies are also encouraging the practice, even providing policyholders with free pill splitters.

I understand the FDA's concern about patients not taking the prescribed therapeudic dosage but making broad statements like this can be confusing, especially to the elderly. There are other reasons to split tablets besides financial. My mother's prescribed potassium supplement would choke a horse. She has to split her tablets.

This is interesting! My employer is all for tablet splitting because it SAVES the facility money (especially when the budget is in the millions(my guess)). How many patients do you know of that have arthritis in their hands and in my personal opinion, they should not be given splitters. I cannot see the logic of a patient getting a splitter for tablets that are so small that when the tablet is split, you get crumbs! True some tablets would choke a horse too and yes, there are advantages to a patient being given a splitter. One of my job duties is to check to make sure a patient has a splitter after a pharmacist verifies the presciption electronically.

One of KY's MCO for Medicaid MANDATES tablet splitting.. especially on brand name mental health drugs... and they are more than willing to pay for tablet splitters up to 2/yr/pt

I am tasked with the repackaging of the unit dosing for the nursing homes. One patient was prescribed a 10mg pill by a VA physician. The VA sent a 20mg non-scored pill and the sig on the label was 1/2 pill. I can understand the desire to save money, but the patients health should come first.

I was taught that if the pill was not scored, the active ingredient may not be distributed properly for cutting. This could adversely effect the patient's health.

Potassium tablets are extremely large, but can be broken or cut in half. They can even be dissolved to be taken. I take 20mEq daily myself. There is no way I could swallow one of those tablets.

Money should not always be the bottom line, the health of the patient should. I enjoy my job, but I am pursuing a career in nutrition because of the financial influence and impact on the patient's health. I hope to be able to impact patients' lives and help as many as possible to make lifestyle changes to prevent the need of as many medications as possible.

When I worked for the VA system (about 7 yrs ago), it was mandatory that patients split tablets whenever possible. Wonder if they still do that, given the FDA advice?

if the patient prefers to do so splitting tablets can save some patients a lot of money - it should only be done on drugs that are scored or where the exact dose is not critical.

I think splitting pills is smart if the patient's co-pay is through the roof and their MD told them to do it. Yeah maybe it's fraud but we really have no proof. We have a lot of people at our pharmacy who get 30 tabs of finasteride 5mg and take 1/4 of that each day rather than pay for 30 tabs of Propecia each month. This way, the 30 tabs of finasteride lasts 4 months rather than 1 and it costs a fraction of the price. Besides, insurance companies usually don't cover Propecia and it's near $80.