Characteristics of high-drug-cost beneficiaries of public drug plans in 9 Canadian provinces: a cross-sectional analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Drugs are the fastest growing cost in the Canadian health care system, owing to the increasing number of high-cost drugs. The objective of this study was to examine the characteristics of high-drug-cost beneficiaries of public drug plans across Canada relative to other beneficiaries.

Methods

We conducted a cross-sectional study among public drug plan beneficiaries residing in all provinces except Quebec. We used the Canadian Institute for Health Information's National Prescription Drug Utilization Information System to identify all drugs dispensed to beneficiaries of public drug programs in 2016/17. We stratified the cohort into 2 groups: high-drug-cost beneficiaries (top 5% of beneficiaries based on annual costs) and other beneficiaries (remaining 95%). For each

SUBMITTER: Tadrous M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7207026 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr-Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature