Download the latest Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Comp here…
Key takeaways
- Total drug spend in workers’ comp was likely around $2.9 billion in 2021.
- The multi-year decline in drug spend seems to have flattened out; across all 31 respondents spend ticked up 0.82%.
- Opioid spend continued to drop, with 2021 figures showing a 12.5% drop over the previous year. Opioids represented 13.4% of all respondents’ pharmacy, the lowest figure in the two-decade history of this survey.
- Legacy opioid patients continue to be a challenge for many payers; most have adopted a “we’ll do whatever might help” approach to these patients.
- Physician dispensing is once again rearing its ugly head with respondents rating it the single biggest problem in workers’ compensation pharmacy after a multi-year hiatus from that august position.
- Payers continue to highly value PBM customer service; myMatrixx continues to lead the industry in that key category.
Media – if you’d like a much more detailed version of the report (which respondents receive) please leave a request in the comment section.
Would love a copy of the report
Hey Michael – you can download the public version at the link.
best Joe
Thanks for publishing this. Curious what leads to the change in atmosphere on physician dispensing. Are there a few bad bad actors that give the whole space a bad name? Where is the whole space bad actors?
E Scott – most welcome.
There are many “bad actors” – mostly in Florida, Maryland, and in the mail order pharmacy business. My best guess is about a half-billion dollars of spend are due to these bad actors.
Tellingly, there was a strong correlation between payers with increasing Rx costs and their level of concern re physician dispensing.
Hope that helps.
Joe