The Medicaid Markup Galaxies: Discover which drug markups are out of this world

A few months ago, we released our Medicaid Markup Universe that collects all generic drugs dispensed within different state Medicaid programs and displays each as a bubble. The larger the bubble, the greater the cost the state is paying for that drug relative to its acquisition cost (i.e. “markup”). While that dashboard provides a good qualitative feel for individual drug pricing distortions, it doesn’t help quantify the distortions. To better identify those distortions in each Medicaid program, we designed a new visualization that drills down to three different groups (or celestially-speaking, “galaxies”) within the universe. We call them the High-Cost, In-Range, and Low-Cost galaxies. Our newest dashboard, the Medicaid Markup Galaxies, shows which drugs state Medicaid programs may be underpaying for, and perhaps more importantly, which drugs they may be overpaying for.

Ben LinkFebruary 13, 2019NADAC, Markup, Medicaid, Ohio, Massachusetts, GER, Georgia, Washington, Missouri

Examining high drug markups: Introducing the Top 20 over $20

We’re told that drug prices are too high, but who actually is setting the price and where does the money end up going? CMS recently updated their State Utilization databases, which track what state Medicaid programs are being charged for prescription drugs. Most notably, they extended the 2018 data to include the second quarter. We have updated our datasets and visualizations to track the changes in drug markups relative to their actual costs. We’ve studied up and have come up with our “Top 20 over $20” list. In other words, the top 20 drugs dispensed through Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) with a markup in of over $20 per prescription. Think of it as a “top 40 under 40” list for generic drugs, with the main difference being that no self-respecting generic drug wants to be on this list. Check out our new visualization that highlights the drugs that are busting the budgets of state Medicaid programs.

Bloomberg puts drug price “markups” on the map

Earlier this week, Bloomberg reporters published their results of a fascinating deep dive into Medicaid generic drug prices. The piece did an excellent job explaining the ins and outs of the hidden pricing spreads that exist on generic drugs, and it featured some intuitive visualizations that helped educate readers who may not have been familiar with these little-known drug price tactics. The analysis conducted by Bloomberg also integrated the results of a recent report from the state of Ohio's Auditor, which found that in a one-year span, PBMs pocketed more than $224 million dollars in spread pricing. Armed with this data, we set out to discover if we could deduce what pharmacy margins were over that same time period in an effort to peel back new layers of the onion and provide better information on where the money is going. Check out our newest drug pricing report to learn more about hidden prescription drug markups.