Suit filed against drug manufacturers for price manipulation

A suit has been filed by Arizona’s Attorney General accusing 42 drug manufacturers of inflating Average Wholesale Prices on drugs sold to physicians. According to an article in the Arizona Republic, at least 14 other states are also pursuing action against foreign and domestic pharmaceutical firms.
The pharmas are accused of artificially inflating the AWP reported to payers and data aggregators, setting prices that are many times higher than what they “actually charge some doctors and pharmacies.” As Medicare, Medicaid, group health plans, and group health and workers comp pharmacy benefit managers often base their reimbursement on AWP, the effect of the alleged price inflation is to generate enormous profits for the retailers and physicians paying the real wholesale prices.
In one example, the Republic noted:
“Abbott Laboratories Inc. lists a price of $382.14 for a 1-gram vial of the antibiotic vancomycin, which is used for severe infections. But the providers, the doctors and pharmacies, are charged only $4.98 for the drug, leaving a profit of $377.16, or 7,547 percent. Some drug firms sell the salt solution sodium chloride to pharmacies and physicians for about $4, with the average wholesale price listed at about $670.
The complaint also says that drug manufacturers provide financial incentives to physicians and suppliers to stimulate drug sales, such as volume discounts, rebates and free goods, at the expense of Medicaid and Medicare. The incentives were not offered to government or consumers.”
AWP is universally derided as “Ain’t What’s Paid”, and this is yet more proof that the pejorative definition of the acronym is more realistic than the industry definition. Transparency is a critical issue in the industry, and this shows why.
Not mentioned in the article is the growing trend in dispensing of drugs by physicians for workers comp patients in many states, particularly California. According to some of our clients, almost half of all drugs dispensed to WC claimants are through physician offices. I’ll comment in depth about this in a future post.
What does this mean for you?
Yet more evidence that the “discount” is meaningless. Too many payers assess their program based not on total drug costs but on the discount received. This is proof that the system is ripe for manipulation.
If you aren’t measuring your drug costs based on total expenditures, you are not doing your job.