Prescription Drugs & Other Medical Products

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) changes the way Medicare pays for prescription drugs. These changes will impact various stakeholders, including Medicare, Medicare enrollees, drug manufacturers, and others.

March-in authority allows the federal government to grant licenses on privately owned patents for inventions developed with federal funding provided certain statutory requirements are met. It was designed to ensure that the benefits of the American taxpayers’ investment in research and development are reasonably accessible to the public.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Innovation Center is in the process of developing the Medicare $2 Drug List (M2DL) Model. This would allow Part D plan sponsors to offer a standardized list of generic drugs for a copayment of $2 or less for a month’s supply that would not be subject to prior authorization, quantity limits, or other utilization management restrictions.

In this Report, we matched a sample of Part D drugs and biological products that had price changes between January 2011 and October 2023 to FDA’s January 2023 list of drug shortages database. Then we analyzed price changes that occurred before and after the shortage, overall and by select drug characteristics of interest.

In this Report, we matched a sample of Part B drugs and biological products that had price changes between January 2011 and October 2023 with the FDA’s January 2023 list of drug shortages database. Then we analyzed price changes that occurred before and after the shortage, overall and by select drug characteristics of interest.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has recently developed guidelines for establishing a comprehensive crisis response system for behavioral health. Per these guidelines, a comprehensive system should provide individuals in crisis with “someone to call,” “someone to respond,” and “a place to go” to receive crisis response services.

This issue brief examines trends related to market size measured via sales revenues and volume of prescription drug use between the U.S. and other countries between 2017 and 2023. Specifically, we compare the U.S. to the rest of the world (excluding the U.S.) and the other OECD countries (excluding the U.S.).

Recovery support services (RSS) are non-clinical services that assist individuals and families in attaining and sustaining recovery from substance use disorders.

People with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders (SUDs) benefit from integrated treatment to address both disorders concurrently. For several decades, policymakers and behavioral health systems have worked to overcome the historical separation between mental health and SUD treatment to improve care for people with co-occurring disorders.

Health Information Technology (HIT) was identified as a critical component of the HHS Roadmap for Behavioral Health Integration. To support the implementation of the Roadmap, an ASPE study was conducted to provide an overview of HIT adoption and utilization among behavioral health providers.