Delivering Lower Out-of-Pocket Cost-Sharing to Patients Despite Medication Inflation
That’s not a middleman. That’s an advocate.
Express Scripts is at the forefront of delivering solutions that bring greater affordability to patients. Express Scripts patients with drug coverage from their job saw about a 1% decrease in their portion of out-of-pocket costs for their prescription medicines last year, paying an average of $15.10 for a 30-day prescription in 2023.
While pharmaceutical manufacturers raised prices for 60% of branded drugs in 2023, Express Scripts lowered costs for these patients because of our negotiations with drug manufacturers and innovative pricing solutions. These savings were delivered to consumers even as inflation drove up consumer prices for goods and services in the United States by 3.4% from 2022 to 2023.
For the entirety of 2023, four in five Express Scripts patients – 81% – spent less than $250 out-of-pocket for their medicines, or about $20 per month. Nearly two-thirds of patients spent less than $100, even as the median annual list price for a new drug reached $300,000 last year, up from $222,000 a year earlier.*
Improving Affordability for Diabetes Medications
For patients living with diabetes, our innovative programs are keeping costs down for necessary medications.
- Insulin and other medications carry an average wholesale price of $438.07 per month – almost $15 a day. Through the Express Scripts Patient Assurance Program (PAP), over 11 million Express Scripts patients can access participating insulin and other diabetes medications for $25 for up to a 34-day supply.
- PAP saved plans and patients $92 million in total last year – $87 million for insulin and nearly $5 million for GLP-1 medications included in the program.
What’s Possible – Greater Affordability and Access
We are constantly evolving to introduce new solutions for our clients and the patients we serve. These solutions are working. But none of this means the system cannot be improved. We urge policymakers to focus on proposals to address the rare circumstances in which patient costs for prescription drugs are still prohibitively expensive, while protecting the use of proven private sector tools that are already lowering drug costs and improving access for the majority of patients.
* Source: Reuters Investigation, Prices for new US drugs rose 35% in 2023, more than the previous year, Feb 23, 2024