A new dawn in healthcare savings.
Ray offers a new and innovative approach to reducing the cost of specialty medications for plans and members. Our team leverages its deep expertise to advocate on behalf of plans and members to identify ways to cut the cost of expensive medications and procedures.
THE CHALLENGE
Specialty drug costs are spiraling
Specialty drugs are used to treat complex and chronic conditions—such as some types of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, or multiple sclerosis. Because of how they are manufactured, distributed and stored, these medications are among the most costly. And, generally, there are no generic alternatives.
This is why, by some estimates, specialty drugs account for 88% of spending on new medications.1
3x
The average cost of specialty medications is increasing more than three times faster than the prices of other goods and services.2
88%
In 2017, specialty drugs accounted for 88% of spending on new drugs.3
1,000%
Nationwide spending on prescription drugs increased from $30 billion in 1980 to $335 billion in 2018, more than 1,000%.4
7x
Nationwide spending on prescription drugs increased more than sevenfold, from $140 to $1,073.5
1 Congressional Budget Office. Prescription Drugs: Spending, Use, and Prices. January 2022.
2 AARP. AARP Report: Average Specialty Drug Price Reached $84,442 in 2020, Rising More Than Three Times Faster Than the Prices of Other Goods and Services. Accessed December 2022.
3 Congressional Budget Office. Prescription Drugs: Spending, Use, and Prices. January 2022.
4 Congressional Budget Office. Prescription Drugs: Spending, Use, and Prices. January 2022.
5 Congressional Budget Office. Prescription Drugs: Spending, Use, and Prices. January 2022.
Patients today bear more of the costs of prescription medications than in the past.6
For example, from 2015 to 2019, deductibles and coinsurance increased on average 14%.
Proportion of Final Out-of-Pocket Costs
Because patients struggle to afford the spiraling cost of medications, adherence is an important problem, contributing to thousands of unnecessary deaths and billions in costs annually.7
The chart below illustrates how 5% of patients abandoned their therapy when they had no out-of-pocket cost, whereas 60% abandoned when they had to pay $500 or more.
Prescription Abandonment Rates
14-day Abandonment Share of New-of-Product Prescriptions by Final Out-of-Pocket Cost in 2019, All Payers, All Products
6 IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. Medicine Spending and Affordability in the United States: Understanding Patients’ Costs for Medicines. 2020.
7 IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science. Medicine Spending and Affordability in the United States: Understanding Patients’ Costs for Medicines. 2020.