This is a good question. Before you answer, consider some of the following information from a recent commentary (NEJM 2013; 369: 1188-89):
- “Commercial drug-insurance…have tiered pharmaceutical formularies..requiring small patient copayments…for inexpensive generic drugs and higher copayments…for brand-name drugs. Manufacturers use coupons…so that…the out-of-pocket costs are the same as those for generic drugs.”
- “Coupons were used for approximately 100 million dispensed prescriptions in 2010 –about 11% of prescriptions for brand-name drugs.”
- The authors performed analysis ‘by manually abstracting information on each coupon advertised in March 2013 at http://www.internetdrugcoupons.com.” They found that with 62% of coupons there were lower-cost therapeutic alternatives available. 58% had generic alternatives and 8% had less-expensive brand-name therapeutic equivalents (some drugs had both generic alternatives and less-expensive brand competitors).
The arguments against coupons:
- “On a population level, drug coupons undermine the tiered-formulary system that commercial insurers have implemented to limit prescription-drug spending.” Insurers must still pay the higher cost of the brand-name drug. This leads to higher insurance coverage rates for all patients.
- Some have argued that these coupons should be disallowed as illegal kickbacks by subverting the cost-sharing arrangements in patients’ insurance contracts.
- The costs for these medications for the patient usually are more in the long run as these coupon offers are often limited to 6-12 months.
Bottomline: when there are lower cost therapeutic alternatives, drug coupon programs increase long-term costs and undermine efforts for patients to have ‘skin in the game.’
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