Prescription Drugs and Workers' Compensation
The NCCI came out with an updated study today on the impact of prescription drugs on the overall workers' compensation system.
While I am glad to see that over-utilization of prescription drugs is down, the costs for these drugs continues to increase based on profit targets of the pharma companies.
KEY FINDINGS
The projected prescription drug share of total medical costs for Accident Year 2016 is 13.7%.
Prescription drug costs per active claim have declined in 2015 and 2016 by 2% and 4%, respectively.
Utilization is the main contributor to the decreases in 2015 and 2016.
Prescription drug prices continue to rise, albeit at a slower rate than in previous years.
Opioid costs per active claim have declined in 2015 and 2016 by 3% and 7%, respectively. Such decreases are due tolower utilization.
Physician dispensing and brand name costs per active claim have also declined in 2015 and 2016. These decreases aredue to lower utilization as well.
In-network prescription drug costs are lower than those out-of-network.
On average, brand name prescription drug prices have increased more than 10% per year in each of the last fiveyears—with a cumulative increase of 80% since 2011.
The top three drugs—Lyrica, OxyContin, and Gabapentin—account for more than 15% of prescription drug costs in 2016.
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