New Drug Spending Tool May be Helpful for Researchers and Policymakers—Not Much Help for Consumers
This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released new data and a new tool on prescription medication: the Drug Spending Dashboard. The Dashboard allows users to see list prices of various medications, how many manufacturers supply the drug, what they have been paid by Medicare—both Part B and Part D—and Medicaid, total and per beneficiary spending on the drug, and comparisons of spending from 2015 to 2016. Such data show trends in both drug pricing and program spending, and CMS offers additional data for use outside of the Dashboard.