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Showing posts with label Pharmacy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pharmacy. Show all posts

Monday, June 29, 2020

Injured Workers Pharmacy Enters into $11 Million Opioid Settlement for Illegal Dispensing and Sales

Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey announced a $11 million settlement with an Andover mail-order pharmacy resolving allegations that it failed to implement adequate safeguards against unlawful and dangerous dispensing, resulting in the shipment of thousands of potentially illegitimate controlled substance prescriptions across the country.

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Prescription-Drug Coupons — No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

The cost of pharmaceuticals prescribed in workers' compensation claims remains a seriously advancing cost to the system.  Employers blame injured workers for the cause and the demand. Is the actual demand being driven by the pharmaceutical industry? The following is shared from The New England Journal of Medicine www.nejm.org.

Visit nearly any official website for a brand-name drug available in the United States and, mixed in with links to prescribing and safety information, you'll find links to drug “coupons,” including copayment-assistance programs and monthly savings cards.

Most offers are variations on “Why pay more? With the [drug] savings card, you can get [drug] for only $18 per prescription if eligible” or “Get a free 30-capsule trial of [drug] with your doctor's prescription and ask your doctor if [drug] is right for you.” Why do manufacturers offer drug coupons? Are they good for patients in the long run? Are they even legal?

Commercial drug-insurance plans typically have tiered pharmaceutical formularies to guide prescription-drug use, requiring relatively small patient copayments (approximately $5 to $15) for inexpensive generic drugs and higher copayments (perhaps $25 to $100) for brand-name drugs. Manufacturers use coupons to reimburse patients for this difference in copayments when they buy brand-name medications, so that, for people with commercial insurance coverage, the out-of-pocket costs are the same as those for generic drugs.

Drug coupons are implemented through subsidies paid by drug manufacturers. Patients nearly always print coupons off...
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Joseph S. Ross, M.D., and Aaron S. Kesselheim, M.D., J.D., M.P.H.
N Engl J Med 2013; 369:1188-1189 September 26, 2013 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1301993

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Price of Vicodin Three Times More in Maryland and Pennsylvania When Dispensed by a Physician

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.claimsjournal.com


New studies from Cambridge-based Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI) says the average price paid for physician-dispensed Vicodin, a commonly dispensed narcotic pain medication in Maryland and Pennsylvania, was three times more than the price paid for the same drug dispensed at a pharmacy ($1.46 versus $0.37 per pill in Maryland and $1.22 versus $0.37 per pill in Pennsylvania).

According to the studies, the average prices paid to physician-dispensers were often more than double the prices paid for the same drugs dispensed at a pharmacy. Issues related to physician dispensing in Maryland have been debated, but no change has been made.

Physician dispensing has been growing rapidly in Pennsylvania. In 2011, physicians dispensed 23 percent of workers’ compensation prescriptions and were paid 38 percent of what was spent for all prescriptions for injured workers. This was an increase from 17 percent of all prescriptions and 18 percent of total prescription costs three years earlier.

“In many states across the country, policymakers are debating whether doctors should be paid significantly more than pharmacies for dispensing the same drug,” said Dr. Richard Victor, WCRI’s executive director. “One question for policymakers is whether the large price difference paid when physicians dispense is justified by the benefits of physician dispensing.”

The Maryland  study found that prices paid to physician-dispensers for many common drugs...
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Friday, July 20, 2012

Workers Compensation Pharmaceuticals Targeted For Reform

Ritalin
Ritalin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
An insurance based research organization, the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI), has published a report concerning newly adopted State regulations limiting the prices paid for doctor-dispensed drugs (repackaging) and comparison costs between prescription medication and similar, less costly, over-the-counter (OTC) drug costs. WCRI also reports on the costs between brand-name drugs and generic prescriptions.

The study examines the results of a change to the California statute that has become a model for many other states. Critics of the regulations express concern that many patients will not get needed medications if they do not get them at the physicians’ offices.

The study, Physician Dispensing in Workers’ Compensation, examines physician dispensing before and after a 2007 change in the California statute that governed the prices paid to physician-dispensers. Prior to the statutory change, physicians typically charged much higher prices than pharmacies for the same medication. For example, for the most common drug, Vicodin®, physicians were paid $0.85 per pill compared to $0.43 for pharmacies—nearly double the price. After the reforms, physicians were paid $0.52 per pill compared to $0.48 for pharmacies. After the law changed, physicians were paid prices for prescription medications that were similar to those paid to pharmacies for the same medication.

This study finds that:

· physician-dispensed drugs became increasingly common in most states that permit physician dispensing;

· prices paid for physician-dispensed drugs were often substantially higher than if the same drugs were dispensed by a retail pharmacy;

· prices paid to dispensing physicians rose rapidly for medications that were commonly dispensed by physicians, while the prices paid to pharmacies for the same drugs changed little or fell.


One of the chief concerns expressed by supporters of physician dispensing (in California and in other states) was that doctors would stop dispensing needed prescriptions when it became less profitable. However, the California post-reform experience shows that physicians continued to dispense prescriptions, even when the prices paid were lower. Before the reforms, 55 percent of all prescriptions were dispensed at physician offices. Three years after the reforms, 53 percent of all prescriptions in California were physician-dispensed so patients had similar access to physician dispensed medications, but at a much lower cost.

Robert Ceniceros, a reporter for Business Insurance, reported, "...But critics contend such price regulations may discourage doctors from dispensing drugs and discourage patients from getting the prescription drugs they need."



The report also examines several other concerns expressed by supporters of physician dispensing. One is that spending on prescription drugs might increase if a California-type reform were adopted. They argue that physicians almost always dispense less expensive generic versions of drugs, while pharmacies dispense both brand names and generics. The study found that for the specific medications commonly dispensed by physicians, generics were almost always dispensed by both physicians and pharmacies. In many states, when generic drugs were dispensed, physician-dispensers were paid much higher prices per pill than pharmacies for the same prescription.

The data used for this study include nearly 5.7 million prescriptions paid under workers’ compensation for approximately 758,000 claims from 23 states over a period from 2007/2008 to 2010/2011. The 23 states in this study represent over two-thirds of the workers’ compensation benefits paid in the United States. These states include Arkansas, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. Several of the states in this study (Arizona, California, Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee) recently adopted reforms aimed at reducing the prices of physician-dispensed drugs.



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