Average Out-of-Pocket Expenses Across Different Drug Categories and Commercial Third-Party Payers

In this Trend Watch, we look at retail pharmacy prescriptions for branded and generic attention deficit hyperactivity disorder treatments, atypical antipsychotics, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, and serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors and analyze the average out-of-pocket costs incurred by patients who are covered by commercial third-party prescription plans (i.e., as opposed to patients covered by Medicaid or patients with no prescription coverage). Overall, patient out-of-pocket costs in commercial third-party plans are lower for generic prescriptions than they are for brand prescriptions by at least $19.02. Comparisons across the drug classes reveal that the average co-pay for brands and generics, as well as the difference between brand and generic out-of-pocket costs, differ by drug category.