2017 Drug Trend Report

In 2017, CVS Health pharmacy benefit management (PBM) strategies reduced drug trend for commercial clients to the lowest level in five years, 1.9 percent per member per year (PMPY), keeping drug price growth at a minimal 0.2 percent despite manufacturer price increases of almost 10 percent. Forty-two percent of our payor clients spent less on their pharmacy benefit plan in 2017 than they had in 2016.

We also helped members save money and lower out-of-pocket (OOP) costs. Nearly nine out of 10 members spent less than $300 OOP in 2017, and monthly cost per member declined by 10 cents to $11.89. To further enhance affordability and price transparency, we introduced real-time benefits enabling prescribers to see the member-specific OOP costs of a prescribed medication as well as the costs of clinically appropriate alternatives in real-time. This allows them to offer members medication options that may be more affordable.

Keeping drugs affordable helped improve adherence. We increased the number of optimally adherent members in key categories like diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia by as much as 1.8 percentage points. In 2018, we are doing even more to help keep drugs affordable with our new Saving Patients Money initiative. Saving Patients Money is designed to help address the high cost of prescription drugs by providing greater pricing transparency across all points of care, including at the pharmacy, and directly to members.