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Quick takeaway: Major price hikes on cancer and other specialty drugs by hospitals drive up healthcare costs.
Digging deeper: A new study found that hospitals charge as much as 300 percent higher for infusion drugs than what they pay for them. By comparison, hospitals are limited to charging Medicare just 6 percent above the acquisition price for these drugs.
Physician- or hospital-infused drugs account for about one-third of total drug spending, with these markups undoubtedly playing a significant role.
What it means: The substantial revenues hospitals earn from administering infused drugs has only served to incentivize hospital consolidation, as these health systems look to merge with each other or acquire physician offices to increase drug volumes and raise prices.
Other negative downstream impacts include limitations to patient access to these marked up drugs or increased cost-sharing, as well as drugmakers raising the prices of these drugs to tap into the revenue stream being monetized by hospitals.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Talking Points: 12 February 2024 - Health Action Network
Digging deeper: A new study found that hospitals charge as much as 300 percent higher for infusion drugs than what they pay for them. By comparison, hospitals are limited to charging Medicare just 6 percent above the acquisition price for these drugs.
Physician- or hospital-infused drugs account for about one-third of total drug spending, with these markups undoubtedly playing a significant role.
What it means: The substantial revenues hospitals earn from administering infused drugs has only served to incentivize hospital consolidation, as these health systems look to merge with each other or acquire physician offices to increase drug volumes and raise prices.
Other negative downstream impacts include limitations to patient access to these marked up drugs or increased cost-sharing, as well as drugmakers raising the prices of these drugs to tap into the revenue stream being monetized by hospitals.
[EXTERNAL LINK] - Talking Points: 12 February 2024 - Health Action Network
