Prescription Drugs: Trends in Usual and Customary Prices for Drugs Frequently Used by Medicare and Non-Medicare Enrollees

This report responds to a Congressional request for information on trends in prices for prescription drugs frequently used by Medicare beneficiaries and other individual with health insurance. We obtained data from two state pharmaceutical assistance programs for the elderly on the usual and customary prices reported by retail pharmacies for selected drugs. The usual and customary price is the undiscounted price individuals without drug coverage would pay. We tracked monthly price trends from January 2000 through June 2004 for a total of 99 drugs, which include 77 drugs frequently used by certain Medicare enrollees and 79 drugs frequently used by certain non-Medicare enrollees. We also compared the price trends during this period separately for the 52 brand drugs and 47 generic drugs.