Historically, the compounding of medicine was done by both physicians and the apothecary. There were no committees to design drug policies nor were there lists of approved medications or manufactured drugs. Most doctors kept ingredients in their cabinets or traveled with boxes of ingredients and mixed a prescription in the presence of the patient. In the 1930s, formulary medicine began to take shape.
Identification
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines a formulary as "a book listing medicinal substances and formulas." A formulary also can be a collection of recipes, formulas or prescriptions.
In the field of medicine--in health plans, in particular--a formulary is a list of prescriptions a drug plan accepts under its coverage. A formulary also can be a patient's list of prescribed medications.
Origins
Agreement on the formulas and production of medication through a formulary committee is believed to have begun at New York City's Bellevue Hospital in the 1930s. Until that time, a list of acceptable drugs and the oversight into their production, efficacy or safety did not exist.
Through this first formulary committee, and the many that followed, the quality, regulation and appropriateness of medications morphed into the formulary medicine that is practiced today.
Health And Human Services
The Department of Health and Human Services provides a Medicare formulary finder for prescription drugs, which searches for prescription drug plans by state. The tool is extensive--for each drug listed, it provides the plan name, the company that manages the plan, its customer service numbers and website address. Most website addresses are linked directly to the plan's Medicare formulary information.
Unapproved Drugs
The drugs not listed on a prescription drug plan's formulary are called non-formulary, or non-preferred, drugs. When a drug falls into this category, it indicates that the plan will not pay for it, so if you want or need to take the drug, you will have to pay out of pocket to do so.
Drug plans often list an alternative formulary drug the plan will pay for alongside the non-formulary drug. These choices are made based on a cost-benefit ratio that typically favors the drug plan.
Natural and Formulary Medicine
Formulary medicine would include the pharmaceutical industry (the inventors of drugs), the compounding pharmacist (who uses formulas to mix prescriptions) and many alternative health practitioners who create herbal or natural medicinal prescriptions for their patients.
Naturopathic doctors have recently had their formulary extended in Oregon under Senate Bill 327; they are now allowed to prescribe from an allopathic and a naturopathic formulary. Vivakor is one example of a biomedical providing research and development into the uses of both naturopathic and allopathic substances.
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