Paying Dearly. (cover story)

DRUGSTORES; SPECIALTY pharmacies; CITY dwellers; PHARMACEUTICAL services insurance; HEALTH insurance premiums

If you have ever emptied your wallet to pay for a handful of pills, you know that drug prices in the United States have soared in recent years. More plans are abandoning low drug copays and having the cost of meds go toward a deductible, says Stacie Dusetzina, Ph.D., an associate professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University. Let's say a PBM gets a high-priced drug at a good discount, prompting the insurer to list this as its preferred drug (meaning that's the one it will cover). And because each plan has a different arrangement (and every insurance company has many plans), even your doctor has no way of knowing what a drug might cost you, Dusetzina says. [Extracted from the article]

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