According to the firm’s annual drug trend report, the average copayment paid by insured patients fell down to $13.20 in 2007 from $13.45 in 2006, even though the total cost of a prescription increased from $55.01 in 2006 to $55.93 in 2007. The report attributes this fall in drug payments to the increased use of generics.
The report also found that during 2002-07, patient copayments for generic drugs increased from $6.71 to $7.57, while for preferred branded drugs they rose from $14.66 to $19.18. And for non-preferred branded medicines the increase was $11.28, from $17.16 to $28.44. In addition, the US consumers’s share of the total cost of the average prescription dropped from 24.5% in 2006 to 23.6% in 2007.
Emily Cox, senior director of research at Express Scripts, said: “We process more than one million prescriptions every day and 63.7% are now for a generic drug versus 42% in 2002. When more generics are used, benefit plan sponsors can control plan costs without shifting these costs to consumers.”