Final Thoughts on Treating Hyperhidrosis

Adelaide Hebert, MD: I think we need to focus on what we can ask of our colleagues within the insurance realm. What can we do with clinicians to help ensure that our patients will have access to medication? What information can we provide to you that will make this process a smoother one for patient access?

Andy Szczotka, PharmD: That’s a great question. From a payer perspective, I think the big difference is helping to educate us that hyperhidrosis is not a lifestyle condition, but that is a medical condition. I think there’s currently a big gap. So, I think we need help in understanding that it is a medical condition and that there are treatments for it. It’s not curative. It includes lifetime medical treatment, and we need to consider how it impacts things. The second part of that is understanding that treatment is not a stepwise approach, concurrently. It’s potentially additive. It’s important to help us understand that this is likely going to be multiple therapies for those severe patients. I think those are really 2 key components to help us understand hyperhidrosis as a disease.

Dee Anna Glaser, MD: Very good. I think that’s helpful for us to understand. We think about it in our world as clinicians and forget that your perspective, from the payer side, may be a little bit different, as well as the amount of information that you have. We just assume that it’s known that we often have to use multimodality treatment to try to control the symptoms of this condition.

This has been extremely informative. Before we end this discussion, I’d like to get final thoughts from each of our panelists. Adam?

Adam Friedman, MD, FAAD: Recognizing this as a medical problem and seeking help is of the utmost importance to change someone’s overall quality of life and their life, in general.

Dee Anna Glaser, MD: Adelaide?

Adelaide Hebert, MD: My hope is that we recognize this in pediatric patients. Having that interface with a healthcare provider very early on, such that we set the stage for a good experience at school and a good experience as they develop their social skills, is going to make an impact that we cannot even estimate at this time. These patients are integrated just as everyone else is within their community, within their school, within their family. It behooves us to do everything we can to allow these patients to progress through life just as everyone else does.

Dee Anna Glaser, MD: That’s great. Andy, last comments?

Andy Szczotka, PharmD: From a payer and pharmacy benefit perspective, hyperhidrosis is not on our radar screen. It’s something new and emerging for us. We have a gap to fill, as far as education. We need to get caught up to speed. I think some of these new emerging therapies are very exciting, but they’re going to compete for healthcare resources. And so, we have to figure out how to best manage that going forward.

Dee Anna Glaser, MD: I want to thank all of you for your contributions to this discussion. On behalf of our panel, we thank you for joining us. We hope you found this Peer Exchange^® discussion to be useful and informative. Thank you.