Slow mail delivery hurts medication access: Study
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
Mail delivery slowdowns could leave people with asthma, diabetes and other chronic illnesses without needed medications, particularly in rural areas, a new report from the Brookings Institution concludes.
Why it matters: Prescription delivery improves the odds people stay on their treatments. Some 6% of all diabetes prescriptions in the U.S. are delivered through the mail, the report authors wrote, citing IQVIA data.
State of play: A 10-year strategic plan to improve the U.S. Postal Service is consolidating mail processing into regional hubs.
- Mail that that used to be processed locally is now sent to bigger regional centers for sorting. As a result, many local post offices more than 50 miles from centers are moving to a single daily collection schedule.
- The changes could downgrade services in much of the country, according to an advisory opinion earlier this year from the Postal Regulatory Commission.
What they found: About 6% of Americans — including 3.7 million Medicare enrollees — face the triple-whammy of living far away from a pharmacy, relying heavily on mail-order prescriptions and residing in areas affected by the USPS consolidation plan.
- Nearly half of Americans face at least one of those challenges.
The bottom line: The postal system is a key, but sometimes overlooked, part of the country's public health infrastructure.
- "When delivery slows or becomes uneven, the consequences are likely to ripple through medication adherence and chronic disease management," Elena Patel, co-director of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, wrote in an essay accompanying the report.
The other side: USPS believes the Brookings report misrepresents the impact of the consolidation and efficiency effort, and that it does not change delivery, a spokesperson told Axios.
