HealthGrades.com offers prescription drug ratings for consumers

GOLDEN, Colo. The health care ratings organization HealthGrades has launched a prescription drug rating and comparison tool for patients on its website HealthGrades.com.

HealthGrades’ drug ratings tool lets individuals research and compare more than 4,300 prescription drugs side by side in a user-friendly format that, according to the company displays:

• Physician-prescribing information including each drug’s rank in its class of drugs based on the number of prescriptions filled and the percent increase or decrease in the number of prescriptions filled versus one-year prior.
• User ratings on effectiveness, tolerability, ease of use, would you recommend, and overall value.
• A printable report that helps patients find the right drug and improve their compliance. The report provides a drug score based on how the patient responded to questions about a drug. This drug score reflects the patient’s experience with the drug and helps guides them in engaging their physician in a discussion about the drug.
• Availability of a generic equivalent.
• Flag indicating that a drug is new and has been on the market for less than one year.
• Price range compared to other drugs.
• Drug safety information, including side effects, drug interactions and official warnings and alerts.

“Patients often do not tell their physician when they are having problems with a drug; they just stop taking it or do not take it as instructed,” said Samantha Collier, HealthGrades chief medical officer. “One of goals of the drug ratings tool is to assist patients in knowing when and how to talk to their doctor.”