Patient advocacy organizations called Thursday for urgent federal action on prescription drug costs after a TelyRx survey showed 58% of American adults on regular medication had skipped or rationed doses in the past year.

The survey found cost was the leading reason patients delayed refills, split pills, or abandoned prescriptions entirely. Chronic disease patients managing diabetes, hypertension, and asthma were among the most affected. The company said the figure marked a rise on prior years of self-reported non-adherence.

Groups including the American Diabetes Association and AARP have repeatedly warned that rationing insulin and other maintenance drugs drives avoidable hospitalizations. Health economists at the Kaiser Family Foundation have documented similar patterns, noting that out-of-pocket costs push patients toward dangerous rationing despite existing price caps.

The findings arrive as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services continues implementing negotiated Medicare drug prices, and as Eli Lilly reported this week that roughly 700,000 Medicare seniors had started GLP-1 therapies. Advocates argued the TelyRx data showed that insulin and inhaler cost ceilings had not reached the wider medication market, and urged lawmakers to extend price limits beyond the current narrow list of drugs.

"When more than half of patients are cutting pills in half, we are looking at a public health emergency, not a market inconvenience," said a spokesperson for a national patient coalition.