Physician Dispensing Driving Up Fla. Workers’ Comp Drug Costs

More frequent and higher priced physician dispensing continues to be the main reason for higher and growing prescription costs in Florida’s workers’ compensation system, according to a new study by the Workers Compensation Research Institute (WCRI).

The study, Prescription Benchmarks for Florida, 2nd Edition, found the average payment per claim for prescription drugs in Florida’s workers’ compensation system was $536 – 45 percent higher than the median of the states in the study.

Higher and growing costs of prescription drugs in Florida were due to more frequent and higher-priced physician dispensing. Physician-dispensing in Florida’s workers’ compensation system has been taking an increasingly larger share of prescription payments.

The percentage of prescription payments for physician-dispensed prescriptions in Florida increased from 17 to 46 percent over a four year period, according to the WCRI report.

The 17 states included in the study were California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin.

Source: Workers Compensation Research Institute