I would expect someone to explain it; if not technically a doctor then a nurse or such, which is consistent with my experience of medical appointments.
Sure, it should be explained, but the point is that there's no value in only enabling a scarce resource (doctors) to explain something that doesn't require any medical training (take this once a day at the same time).
The pharmacist can explain it. You can put it in huge text on the packaging. You can text or email people.
You could literally make someone DocuSign a single page PDF that just says "THIS ONLY WORKS CORRECTLY IF YOU TAKE IT AT THE SAME TIME EVERY DAY" in order to get their prescription.
All of these options get the exact same message across without being inconvenient and causing people to miss taking their birth control because they couldn't get a doctor's appointment, etc. There are costs to making people go into a medical office that you can't ignore here.
"All of these options get the exact same message across without being inconvenient and causing people to miss taking their birth control because they couldn't get a doctor's appointment, etc. There are costs to making people go into a medical office that you can't ignore here."
I mean, the alternative already exists - online appointments. You can even get auto renewing prescriptions through the mail.
What is the need for any kind of appointment with a doctor? There is literally no medical expertise required for what we're talking about here. There is the need to relay an instruction that almost anyone can understand. Why is it a good idea to force patients to make any kind of appointment and to take up the time of very highly trained medical professionals, in order to say "TAKE THIS AT THE SAME TIME EVERY DAY"?
You could train a dog to pass that message across using some of those buttons that say words when pressed. That would actually probably be much more effective than having it come from a doctor, because the dog thing would be much more memorable.
Depends on the result we are expecting as to if it's unreasonable. I would guess at least half of people do not read the paper you get with the medication (any meds).
The pharmacist can explain it. You can put it in huge text on the packaging. You can text or email people.
You could literally make someone DocuSign a single page PDF that just says "THIS ONLY WORKS CORRECTLY IF YOU TAKE IT AT THE SAME TIME EVERY DAY" in order to get their prescription.
All of these options get the exact same message across without being inconvenient and causing people to miss taking their birth control because they couldn't get a doctor's appointment, etc. There are costs to making people go into a medical office that you can't ignore here.