Tag: prescription drugs

13Aug, 2018

Why does the U.S spend so much on healthcare (Part 4)

By: NOEL GUILLAMA | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

As we try to transition to another subject in healthcare (blockchain and healthcare), the media continues to confirm our previous comments that nearly every general, economic and business media, talks about healthcare costs daily. On August 1, 2018, the Wall Street Journal did an entire page (A6) titled, “Why Americans Spend So Much on Health Care.” I could not ignore that headline, or the amazing information presented by the Wall Street Journal. The biggest point made by the Wall Street Journal article is primarily focused on the comparison of the […]
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31Jul, 2018

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Why does the U.S. spend so much in healthcare? (Part 3)

By: NOEL GUILLAMA | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

Why does the U.S. spend so much money in healthcare? This topic crosses our desks, screens, newspapers, magazines and talk shows daily. Sometimes I wonder if I’m obsessed, as I see it everywhere; however, I am not the only one obsessed. Stored on my server, I have a file that contains all the major headlines that I want to discuss in future blogs. After doing a quick search, I’ve discovered that there is more than one article daily in a major publication or news source that discusses healthcare costs. Yesterday, […]
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28Jun, 2018

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Why does the U.S. spend so much in healthcare? (Part 2)

By: Charity Darby | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

In our last blog, we brought up the recent article in The Atlantic magazine, noting the title had gotten my attention: “How We Spend $3,400,000,000,000 – Why more than half of America’s healthcare spending goes to five percent of patients.” As we stated, younger people generally don’t spend very much money on healthcare with relatively modest costs until about age 45 when the cost begins to escalate yearly. I have had the honor and pleasure to speak to numerous young people – innovators in healthcare – that are seeking to […]
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19Jun, 2018

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Why does the U.S. spend so much in healthcare? (Part 1)

By: NOEL GUILLAMA | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

Recently, I read an article in The Atlantic magazine: “How We Spend $3,400,000,000,000 – Why more than half of America’s healthcare spending goes to five percent of patients.” The title was a great hook for me. The meat of the article was this paragraph: If that $3.4 trillion were spread equally throughout the population, the bill would come to some $10,350 for every man, woman and child in the country. But fortunately—for most of us, anyway—the cost of health care is not equally distributed. Rather, a small number of Americans run […]
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13Jun, 2018

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President Trump and Prescription Drugs (Part 3)

By: Charity Darby | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

Whether you like, dislike, or are apathetic about President Trump, it remains a fact that he has handled nearly every issue he has faced in a non-traditional way. It seems he will do the same with prescription drug prices in the U.S. Though drug prices account for $320 billion (USD) annually, or about 10% of total healthcare cost of over $3.3 trillion, it is disproportionally more than 10% of an actual patient’s cost. It also has a material effect on health; a drug costing $0.50 per pill can help save […]
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5Jun, 2018

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President Trump and Prescription Drugs (Part 2)

By: NOEL GUILLAMA | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

In our second installment of President Trump and Prescription Drugs, President Donald J. Trump recently announced a “Blueprint” to reduce U.S. drug prices. We start with a report from IQVIA (formerly IMS Health and Quintiles) on oncology drug cost (note U.S. share of total): “The global market for oncology therapeutic medicines will reach as much as $200 billion by 2022, averaging 10-13% growth over the next five years, with the U.S. market reaching as much as $100 billion by 2022, averaging 12-15% growth.” Many times, we have discussed the opaqueness […]
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23May, 2018

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President Trump and Prescription Drugs (Part 1)

By: Charity Darby | Tags: EHR, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), healthcare, Medicare, Pharmacy Benefit Administrator, prescription drugs, PWeR

Over the years, this blog has concentrated primarily on how healthcare is being changed by technology. There are two tectonic forces that we believe are changing healthcare today and they are: digitization of healthcare and consumerism. This combination, driven by the force of three technology savvy generations, is in fact the only thing that will change healthcare. This change has begun and we will continue to see it transform over the next five to seven years, something that has not happened in over 70 years of conversation about healthcare reform. […]
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6Jan, 2016

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U.S. Drug Cost, A State of Emergency?

By: Charity Darby | Tags: consumers, drug spending, Food & Drug Administration, prescription drugs, private insurers, treatment

This blog follows the prior blogs regarding pharmaceutical costs. This will be the last blog on this subject for now. We want to talk about the exiting things 2016 holds for healthcare and technology and, it is possible to write about the pharmaceutical issues in the U.S non-stop. We have previously discussed the incredibly innovative, lifesaving and life extending drugs, typically originated on American soil. The facts are, as mentioned in the previous blog, the U.S. government/taxpayer, insurance company and patient, pay more for most pharmaceuticals than in any other […]
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28Dec, 2015

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America’s Unique Drug Problem

By: Charity Darby | Tags: Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Government, HHS, M.D, Market, Medicare Access and CHIP Re-authority Act of 2015 (MACRA), Medicare and Medicaid, prescription drugs, President-elect Trump, technology, telemedicine, Thomas E Price, Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), U.S.

We in the U.S. spend more on prescription drugs than any other country on earth. Put another way, we spend per capita more on pharmaceuticals alone than the following countries spend in TOTAL on healthcare (normalized in U.S. dollars) – Ukraine, Peru, Iran, Columbia, South Africa, Mexico, Poland and Russia. This brings an interesting perspective. In 2014, U.S. drug spending was up 12.2%; however, actual out-of-pocket spending for prescription drugs is actually down 14% since 2007. Where is this difference being spent? Government and private insurance programs. The argument is […]
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9Dec, 2015

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U.S. Spending on RX 2014

By: Charity Darby | Tags: : FDA, Average Wholesale Price, Big Pharma, Congress, cost, insurance companies, Medicaid, Medicare, PMPM, prescription drugs, price

The United States Spends $297 Billion (USD) on Prescription Drugs, is that fair? As the headline read, in 2014 the United States spent $297,700,000,000 on prescription drugs. This is not only a staggering amount, but what is even more disturbing is we in the U.S. pay the greatest for the most advance drugs in the world. I come to this subject from many angles. One angle is my decade’s long use of prescriptions for chronic problems, the consumer whose life has been saved by those same innovative and revolutionary drugs. […]
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