Forget about the big name and the fancy packaging for your prescription drugs and go generic, the American College of Physicians urged in a paper released Monday.

The ACP estimates the change could potentially save patients, insurance companies and Medicare $325 billion a year.

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The key is getting the message out about the safety and quality of generic prescription medicine, Dr. Wayne J. Riley, the president of the ACP, told LifeZette.

“I think there’s always been this sneaky suspicion in the back of the minds of patients that if my doctor gives me a generic it’s not as good as the brand name, or it won’t work as well,” Riley said. “In the vast majority of cases, generic medication are equally effective as brand name medications that patients are used to taking.”

“If it was all spelled out, maybe it would be a clearer picture and I’d feel safer taking it.”

Riley leads the largest medical specialty organization in the United States, made up of more than 143,000 physicians, mostly internal medicine doctors.

Among other issues, the ACP’s study looked at how often brand name drugs are used when generic versions are available. The authors analyzed how well patients stick with generics and whether some generics offered the same benefit as their brand name counterparts.

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Except for some cases in which generic substitutes were not appropriate or possible, the authors found that generics withstood the test on each count. Notably, they also found that Medicare could save $1.4 billion for patients with diabetes alone.

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Convincing patients to change their perception of the generic prescriptions will be the hardest part of the strategy to implement, Riley told LifeZette.

Among the most difficult to convert will be patients like Sue Sprecher of Sky Valley, Georgia. The grandmother of seven has long been a skeptic of generics and prefers to go with the familiar drug company’s product over anything else.

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“Every time I can, I will,” Sprecher told LifeZette. “I will take the name brand over the generics any time I can afford to do it.”

Sprecher believes there are too many unknowns about generic prescriptions. She questions what manufacturers are doing to make the drugs so much cheaper.

“If it was all spelled out, maybe it would be a clearer picture and I’d feel safer taking it,” Sprecher said.

Riley believes psychology and appearance are largely fueling the pushback among the unconverted. He said when patients’ Lipitor is replaced with Atorvastatin, the generic equivalent, the fact that it looks different may compel them to believe it’s inferior.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Riley.

There is a significant price difference between the two medications.

LifeZette called a 24-hour Walgreens pharmacy in Chicago to compare the out-of-pocket cost of Lipitor versus Atorvastatin.

The pharmacy technician said a 30-day supply of 10 mg of Lipitor was $261.99, but the same amount of Atorvastatin was $105.99. That’s a savings of $156 a month.

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The ACP’s study recommends several strategies to change doctors’ and patients’ habits, one of which is encouraging insurance companies and generic drug manufacturers to work together to make free generic samples available to patients through their physicians.

The group also encourages patients to advocate for themselves and help their doctors change old habits when they prescribe a brand name.

“Ask the physician, ‘Hey doc, is there a generic for that?’ and feel comfortable and confident that that’s an appropriate thing to do,” Riley told LifeZette.

The ACP’s paper is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.