Prime Therapeutics Specialty Pharmacy helped nearly 20,000 members save $21.2 million on specialty medicines in 2013
PR Newswire Association LLC |
With specialty drug costs expected to rise to 50 percent of commercially insured total drug costs by 2018,
Copay coupons and PAPs are offered by pharmaceutical manufacturers to help patients defray the cost of drug treatments and help maintain member adherence. According to a September article in
"Copay coupons can be inappropriate for many medicines when there are low cost generic alternatives often available," said
Until now, little was known about these copay offset programs, since data on coupon and PAP use are frequently not collected by pharmacy benefit managers. However, Prime recently studied 264,801
Prime Specialty Pharmacy helped 19,862 members (52.4%) save$21,234,246 through copay offsets (manufacturer coupons and patient assistance programs - PAPs)- The savings of
$21,234,246 represents 60.2% of the member share (originally$35,297,162 ) - 44.3% of the prescriptions (117,330 claims) had a copay offset applied to the member share.
- The average yearly savings per member who received copay offsets was
$1,069 (of the 19,862 members, for all their prescriptions throughPrime Specialty Pharmacy during 2013)$80 in copay offset savings per all prescriptions dispensed fromPrime Specialty Pharmacy in 2013$181 in copay offset savings per prescriptions dispensed fromPrime Specialty Pharmacy where a copay offset was applied- >
$1,000 copay offset savings was found in 4,893 (4.2%) ofPrime Specialty Pharmacy prescriptions dispensed with any copay offset
"Helping members take advantage of these cost-reducing measures is critical because the high cost of specialty medicines has been shown to negatively affect members' adherence to their medicines," noted Gleason. "Applying copay offsets is just one of the many ways we help members get the medicines they need to feel better and live well."
About Prime Therapeutics
For more information, visit www.primetherapeutics.com or follow @Prime_PBM on Twitter.
SOURCE
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