Margolis team recommends improving access to life-saving antibiotics for medicare beneficiaries

A “subscription model” is an alternative payment model that could help increase the development, availability, and appropriate use of priority antibiotics to combat rising levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), according to researchers at the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy in a Health Affairs blog published today.

Nearly 3 million Americans  – nearly one in a hundred —  contract antibiotic-resistant infections every year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result, according to a 2019 report from Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Medicare beneficiaries are the segment of the U.S. population most susceptible to death and complications from antibiotic-resistant microbes.