A comparison of costs of medicare part D prescriptions dispensed at retail and mail order pharmacies.

CONCLUSIONS: Third-party payers, including Medicare, paid more for prescriptions dispensed at mail order pharmacies than for those dispensed at retail pharmacies in the Medicare Part D program. The higher payments appeared to result, for the most part, because of higher patient cost sharing at retail pharmacies. Further, total costs--including both third-party payer and patient payments--for 90-day and 90-day or greater supplies were lower at retail pharmacies than at mail pharmacies. These results suggest that, all other things being equal, Medicare Part D plan sponsors do not realize savings when patients use mail order pharmacies. PMID: 25166295 [PubMed - in process]
Source: Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Tags: J Manag Care Pharm Source Type: research