As of June 2017, 22 states have made legislative or regulatory changes to rules governing reimbursement for physician-dispensed pharmaceuticals. This report documents the state of physician dispensing across 26 state workers’ compensation systems. It also evaluates the impact of the price-focused reforms in a multistate context, focusing on the frequency and costs of physician dispensing between the post-reform states and the non-reform or pre-reform states.

The data used for this report came from payors that represented 36–68 percent of all medical claims across 26 states. The states included in this study are Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin. The detailed prescription data cover service years from 2011 through 2014, for all medical claims with 24 months of experience.

The study also includes a research brief, which appears at the beginning of the document.

A Multistate Perspective on Physician Dispensing, 2011–2014. Dongchun Wang, Vennela Thumula, and Te-Chun Liu. July 2017. WC-17-30.

Copyright: WCRI