Unbiased Analysis of Today's Healthcare Issues
That is the summary takeaway I had form reviewing the 91 page CMS guidance on the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) maximum fair price (MFP) negotiation released about 10 days ago. Below, I summarize some of the key findings. SELECTING DRUG FOR PRICE NEGOTIATION Unsurprisingly, CMS is looking for the highest cost drugs among the 10…
Perhaps surprisingly, the answer is PBMs, not drug manufacturers. That is one of the conclusions discussed in a recent commentary by Good and Hernandez (2021). They try to get to the bottom of this question, writing: Most explanations for increasing drug costs start with drug companies, and indeed they are an easy target. Manufacturers in…
Price increases have decelerated. While the cost of specialty drugs has continue to rise, the cost of traditional drugs is now falling. The net impact is modest changes in drug prices (<5%) since 2016. Hat tip: Drug Channels.
While at the national level, there has been much press about President Trump’s aim of compelling pharmaceutical companies to disclose prices on TV ads (since blocked in the Judiciary), at the state level changes are also afoot. A number of states are making moves to compel pharmaceutical companies to disclose drug prices. Others are compelling…
In many cases, the answer is ‘no’. At least that is the findings from a paper by Ryan and Sood (2019). As reported in FiercePharma: Sood and Ryan reviewed 166 drug pricing laws passed between 2015 and 2018 and found that 35 bills in 22 states included transparency mandates. Only seven of the laws were…
In one of his first acts as California Governor, Gavin Newson has proposed a way to reduce drug price: let California use its size to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical firms. As the N.Y. Times reports: [O]n Monday, Mr. Newsom signed an executive order proposing a plan that would allow California to directly negotiate with drug manufacturers. The…
According to a recent study in Health Affairs by Hernandez et al. (2019), the answer is ‘no’. The authors use pricing data from First Databank and pharmacy claims from UPMC Health Plan between 2008-2016 to track trends in drug prices over time. They found that the costs of oral brand name drugs increased 9.2% per year…
A recent report from Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) found that for about 30 physician administered drugs, prices are 8 times as high as those charged in other developed countries. To address the high prices, President Trump unveiled a three-part plan to reduce drug prices. Under the “international pricing index” proposal, U.S. drug…
As the 18th Annual International Society for Pharmacoecomoics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) begins this past weekend, today the Healthcare Economist examines drug prices around the world. Drug prices in the U.S. are much higher than any other developed country. This finding is robust whether the price index is created using the U.S. drug consumption basket…
Joe Paduda finds the price inflation is slowing for drug purchased through Workers Comp programs. “Drug trend continues to moderate, with inflation in 2007 coming in at 4.3%. That’s a big improvement over last year’s 6.5%, which was a big improvement over the previous year’s 9.5%…” One reason for the price decline may be that…