At a time when healthcare costs are scrutinized more closely than ever, a new study demonstrates the importance of taking medications as prescribed to control costs.

The study of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) shows that children and adolescents who are increasingly non–adherent to medication regimens have more than a three–fold increase in costs compared to adherent patients.

“This study has important ramifications for healthcare reform and how practitioners approach adherence assessment and intervention in routine care,” says Kevin Hommel, PhD, director of the Center for Health Technology Research at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center and the study’s lead author. “With sustained efforts to reduce non–adherence in chronic conditions, we may see concomitant reduction in healthcare costs.”

The study was published online in the journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases.

Hommel led a group of researchers in studying 99 patients between the ages of 2 and 21 with IBD, a chronic medical condition whose incidence rates are growing worldwide and has been considered an emerging global epidemic. The researchers collected data each month for two years on whether patients were taking their medicines, disease severity and healthcare costs.

After controlling for disease severity, the researchers not only found more than a three–fold increase in costs among those who increasingly do not take their medications as directed. They also found that patients who adhered to directions increasingly over time incurred approximately the same costs as those who consistently took their medications. This suggests that it’s never too late to modify behavior to improve health and increase cost savings, says Hommel.

The annual national cost burden of pediatric IBD from hospitalizations alone is estimated at more than $150 million. Because hospitalizations make up about one–third of total costs of IBD, the total annual costs of pediatric IBD may exceed $450 million, according to Hommel.