Updated Medicare and Medicaid Drug Spending Data Released

On November 15, 2016, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released updated Medicare and Medicaid drug spending data, to include information for calendar year (CY) 2015 through its online interactive dashboards for Medicare and Medicaid. The inclusion of the Medicaid drug spending data on the public dashboard is new this year, as is the addition of high-level (aggregated) Medicare drug rebate data. CMS noted that “there is significant growth in spending on prescription drugs, representing a significant burden.” In CY 2015, total prescription drug costs amounted to roughly $457 billion – an estimated 16.7 percent of personal health care spending. “This is up from $367 billion, or 15.4 percent of personal health care spending in 2012. With annual growth expected to average 6.7 percent annually for 2025, [CMS] expect[s] increasing costs to continue to put pressure on families and programs that cover prescription drugs.” The dashboard provides spending, utilization, and other trend data for the drugs chosen to be included in the dashboards. CMS selected drugs for inclusion that met the following criteria: (1) drugs with high spending on a per user basis (Medicare) and drugs with high spending on a per prescription fill basis (Medicaid); (2) drugs with high total program spending; and (3) drugs with high costs increases in recent years. Medicare CMS identified a total of eighty drugs for inclusion on the dashboard: 40 Part D drugs, and 40 Part B drugs...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs