Pharmacy
In the absence of generic alternatives to these pricey biologics, biosimilar drugs hold great promise for U.S. patients and their wallets.
Despite the high cost of specialty drugs driving up expenditures, Medicare Part D prescription drug plan premiums are projected to rise by only about $1.50 over the average premium last year, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced Friday.
Generic drug price hikes have come under close scrutiny lately, as reports continue to surface of significant and seemingly inexplicable increases, often for widely used drugs like levothyroxine or digoxin, a heart medicine, whose out-of-pocket costs to consumers have been modest for years.
Research letter published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry found Medicare beneficiaries had the highest and most rapidly growing rate of "opioid use disorder." Six of every 1,000 recipients struggle with the condition, compared with one out of every 1,000 patients covered through commercial insurance plans.
The more generic alternatives there are to brand-name drugs, the more likely they will drive down costs for patients and providers. That's the word from a new report from the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Government spending on "compounded" drugs that are handmade by retail pharmacists has skyrocketed, drawing the attention of federal investigators who are raising fraud and overbilling concerns.
A recent study examined this pattern and found the prescriptions are used and renewed more often than you might imagine.
New research published Wednesday found that states that legalized medical marijuana -- which is sometimes recommended for symptoms like chronic pain, anxiety or depression -- saw declines in the number of Medicare prescriptions for drugs used to treat those conditions and a dip in spending by Medicare Part D, which covers the cost on prescription medications.
A new study takes a fresh measure of generic drugs' price advantages, revealing how much more Medicare Part D patients shelled out in copayments for two popular brand-name drugs in 2013. The result: 10.5 times more.
Many clinicians report feeling pressure to overprescribe opioids because scores on the pain management questions are tied to Medicare payments.