5-Slide Series
For the November edition of the Five Slide Series we tabluated the costs and usage of three prevalent Hepatitis C medications – Sovaldi, Harvoni, and Viekira Pak. These drugs have all been introduced within the last 2 years and have exploded in popularity over that span, despite the high prices they command. In this slide deck we look at these drugs on a state-by-state basis, as well as on the national level.
5-Slide Series
This October edition of the Five Slide Series quantifies the monthly influx of the Medicaid expansion population through March of 2015. Expansion enrollment increased throughout the 15 month period in 14 of the 15 states reviewed.
5-Slide Series
This September edition of the Five Slide Series is a set of projections of the degree to which each state’s Medicaid program will be “capitated” in 2016. Nationally and in several states, substantial movement to the capitated model has occurred in recent years and this constitutes “true health reform” – fundamentally changing how Medicaid services are being accessed, delivered, and paid for.
5-Slide Series
We tabulated the cost per prescription for FFY 2014 using a 100% sample of Medicaid-paid prescriptions in each state. Medicaid’s national average net (post-rebate) cost per prescription was $37 in 2014. Initial (pre-rebate) payments to pharmacies averaged $72 per prescription; rebates averaged $35 per prescription. Net costs per prescription at the state level ranged from a low of $24 in Rhode Island to a high of $60 in Connecticut.
5-Slide Series
The June 2015 edition summarizes a full report we prepared in April, sponsored by America’s Health Insurance Plans. We believe this report, “Comparison of Medicaid Pharmacy Costs and Usage in Carve-In Versus Carve-Out States,” compellingly demonstrates the cost-effectiveness of using the pharmacy carve-in model.
5-Slide Series
The May 2015 edition portrays the distribution of all Medicaid prescriptions by their unit cost corridor. These slides quantify the rapid growth in Medicaid prescriptions with a cost per prescription above $1,000. The high-cost medications in this corridor represented 1.3% of pre-rebate Medicaid pharmacy spending in 2005 but have increased to 28.4% of Medicaid pharmacy spending in 2013 and 32.6% of Medicaid pharmacy spending in 2014.
5-Slide Series
The April 2015 edition presents recent nationwide and state-level data on Sovalidi usage. These slides also convey recent usage of a related Hepatitis C medication (Harvoni) as well as a specialty pharmacy drug, Kalydeco, in a completely different clinical area for comparison purposes.
Publication
This study examined 35 states and DC that used the Managed Care Organization (MCO) model in their Medicaid program and either included (carved-in) or excluded (carved-out) pharmacy benefits from coverage. The report found that carve-in states outperform carve-out states by a wide margin, saving Medicaid $2.06 billion in state and federal expenditures in 2014 alone.
Key findings of the report include:
Across 28 states using the carve-in model, the net cost per prescription was 14.6% lower than the average net cost per prescription in states not carving in pharmacy.
This 14.6% differential created a $2.06 billion net savings in state and federal expenditures in FFY2014 for states deploying the carve-in model.
The seven carve-out states had a 20% increase in net costs per prescription from FFY2011-FFY2014 — in stark contrast to the 1% increase in net costs per prescription experienced by the 6 states that recently switched from a carve-out to a carve-in model.
The seven carve-out states “missed” a total of $307 million in savings in FFY2014 which would have occurred had they used a carve-in model.
5-Slide Series
This report summarizes Medicaid’s pharmacy costs during 2013 and 2014 and demonstrates the importance of viewing these expenditures on a net, post-rebate basis. Rebates accounted for 48.5% of the initial amount paid to pharmacies for Medicaid prescriptions during 2014, for example. The report also conveys the usage and cost information that is publicly available to date for Sovaldi.
5-Slide Series
This edition of our Five Slide Series is focused on honoring accountability in Medicare and Medicaid — where it is being achieved and where it isn’t.
