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Medicare Part B Drugs: Trends in Spending and Utilization, 2008-2021

Publication Date
Authors
Nguyen X. Nguyen, Steven H. Sheingold, T. Anders Olsen, and Nancy Delew

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) released new research on spending and utilization trends of Medicare Part B drugs, drugs administered in physicians' office or hospital outpatient departments rather than being purchased at the pharmacy counter or by mail order. The report showed that Medicare Part B drugs had the fastest rate of spending growth among drugs in the Medicare program over the past few decades. Part B drug spending per enrollee in traditional Medicare (known as fee-for-service or FFS) grew on average at 9.2 percent annually over the 2008-2021 period. This spending growth was more than triple the rate in Part D (2.6 percent) and nearly 4 times as high as the rate of per capita annual prescription drug spending across all payers (2.4 percent) reflected in the National Health.

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