IQVIA report: U.S. health system is recovering from pandemic
U.S. medicine spending increased 0.8% on a net price basis to $359 billion, which reflects an increasing gap between list or invoice prices and manufacturer net revenues.
The U.S. health system demonstrated resilience and flexibility during 2020, recovering toward its pre-pandemic levels of activity and progressing into 2021, even as the backlog of missed or delayed activity remains substantial. This finding comes from a new report by the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science — The Use of Medicines in the U.S., which also found that medicine supply was largely maintained and spending on medicines increased by less than 1% on a net price basis.
Other key findings in the report include:
Health Services Utilization Index During COVID-19
- During the first quarter of 2021, the use of key health services — as measured by the IQVIA Health Services Utilization Index — was at 82% of pre-COVID-19 levels, up from a low of 42% at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020.
Medicine Use
- A total of 6.3 billion prescriptions were dispensed in 2020 with growth slowing to 1.7% after adjusting for the increased use of 90-day prescriptions for chronic therapies.
Medicine Spending and Growth Drivers
- U.S. medicine spending increased 0.8% on a net price basis to $359 billion, which reflects an increasing gap between list or invoice prices and manufacturer net revenues.
Patient Out-of-Pocket Costs and Affordability
- Out-of-pocket costs in aggregate for all patients, including retail prescriptions and non-retail medicines, increased $1 billion in 2020 to a record $77 billion.
Outlook to 2025
- Total net spending on medicine is expected to reach $380 to $400 billion in 2025, up from $359 billion in 2020, reflecting a compound annual growth rate of 0% to 3%.
Learn more by downloading the report and graphic exhibits.