74% Of Us Get a 1.6 Rxs Per Month

Drug utilization just keeps going through the roof.  Express Scripts just updated their data in a press release today which also includes some information on regional variations (which is very interesting when you see the whole data set).

• 74% of people now get at least one prescription.
• The average number of claims per member per year is now 14.3 (which is a 30% jump since 2000).
• So…if you divide 14.3 by 74%, you get 19.32 which is the number of claims which each utilizing member gets per year.  (i.e., if you get a prescription claim, on average you get 19.32 claims per year)
• 19.32 claims per year is equal to 1.6 Rxs per month (for every person that utilizes their prescription benefit).

Obviously, this is an average which some of you who use medications acutely will think is not possible.  For some of you that are on 10 medications (i.e., 120 claims per year if fully compliant), you will think this is low.  As discussed before, utilization varies dramatically by age.

(As a side note, Emily Cox and her team do a great job on research.  She took over for Brenda Motheral who has moved on to Healthways and led much of the research and product efforts for several years.)