Prescription Spending Rising, Won't Fall Soon

More than $329 billion was spent on prescription drugs alone in 2013, raising the amount spent on drug annual by over three percent since the previous year. The experts who report these statistics are now saying that they do not expect increasing spending to drop anytime soon.

According to a recent report released by IMS Health Inc. -- once known as Intercontinental Marketing Services - - last year's increased prescription spending was driven largely by notable price hikes, and increased use of the healthcare system in general in the United States.

The report, which was released on Tuesday, shows that a 3.2 percent rise in prescription drug spending from 2012 to 2013 resulted in a one percent increased in total spending on a real-per-capital basis and high returns for drug companies in 2013.

The report also shows that this increase in spending was in-part due to the fact that overall use of the U.S. healthcare system rose after several years of zero growth.

According to IMS Health experts, this growth was most noticeable after it was determined that out-of pocket spending among patients had increased in 2013 despite the fact that "co-payments [have] declined and are now less than $5 for more than half of all prescriptions filled."

"Following several years of decline, 2013 was striking for the increased use by patients of all parts of the U.S. healthcare system -- even in advance of full implementation of the Affordable Care Act," said Murray Aitken, executive director of the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, in an IMS press release.

According to the IMS report, these rising numbers are not expected to fall anytime soon, especially with a record number of people signing up for the Affordable Health Care Act these last few months.

Patents and new drugs too will keep spending numbers up. For instance, new and revolutionary drugs like the hepatitis C drug Sovaldi boast extremely high pricing, while patents for other modern drugs have yet to expire, meaning that cheaper generic brands cannot yet be sold in the U.S. market.

Details of the IMS Health report were announced in a company press release on April 15.