Blue Cross persuaded thousands of patients to switch their prescriptions to generic drugs in 2006, a shift that will save customers and the company money this year.
Insurers nationwide are focusing on controlling prescription drug spending as a way to reign in surging medical costs.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina's program, which waived the copayment for generic prescriptions, was designed to reward members for switching from expensive brand-name drugs to cheaper generics.
Blue Cross says the copayment waiver saved its members $80 million in 2006. Patients who switched last year from branded drugs to generics will continue to save as much as $40 each time they fill a prescription, depending on their employers' drug payment tiers.
The insurer reaps the benefit, as well. Generic drugs cost a fraction of the price of their branded counterparts, so more generic prescriptions will slice Blue Cross' expenditures on pharmaceuticals, one of its fastest-growing medical costs.
The insurer spent $80 million covering all those $10 copayments in 2006, but if patients stick with their generic prescriptions, it expects to break even on the program and start generating savings by the end of the year.
Generics are introduced after a brand drug loses patent protection. The drugs look different and have different names, but they have the same active ingredients and should treat disease in the same way.
About 20 percent of members taking medications for chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and congestive heart failure switched from a brand-name to a generic drug last year, said Ron Smith, the Chapel Hill-based insurer's vice president of corporate pharmacy.
In December, about 62 percent of the prescriptions filled by Blue Cross members were for generics, compared with a 58 percent average for the full year and 46.8 percent in 2004.
"This program, we believe, has changed the conversation within physicians' offices and at the pharmacies," Smith said.
And with popular drugs going off-patent and technology available to encourage doctors to prescribe generics, the state's largest health insurer is optimistic about increasing generic use even further in 2007.
Last year, the insurer introduced free electronic prescribing technology that prompts doctors to consider generics or cheaper branded alternatives. Likewise, with Blue Cross' generic sample initiative, patients can try generic drugs rather than their branded counterparts.
"It levels the playing field," Smith said. |
