The HHS' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Thursday released a wide-ranging new dataset detailing physicians' and healthcare providers' drug prescriptions in the Medicare Part D program, including the number of beneficiaries, claims, prescribers, and total costs.
As industry observers might anticipate, the most-prescribed drugs in Part D were all generics (generics make up more than 85% of all prescriptions in the U.S.). But among brand name medications, drugs from AstraZeneca (Nexium, Crestor), GlaxoSmithKline (Advair), Bristol-Myers Squibb (Abilify), Eli Lilly (Cymbalta), Boehringer Ingelheim (Spiriva), Actavis (Namenda), Merck (Januvia), Sanofi (Lantus), and Celgene (Revlimid) cost Part D the most money. You can click on the following chart to expand it:
These drugs' indications aren't too surprising, given that Part D serviced elderly Americans. Gastrointestinal disorders, COPD, diabetes, cholesterol maintenance, anemia, cancers, and dementia-related antipsychotics make up the top 10 list.
A variety of blood pressure, heart failure, cholesterol maintenance, and thyroid meds made up the list of most prescribed generic drugs:
As a bonus, CMS also included a map of the U.S. highlighting the massive discrepancies in generic prescriptions throughout the country: