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NEW YORK, Jul 01, 2005 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- U.S. employers increasingly are raising employees' co-pay cost for prescription drugs as a way to rein-in their own cost for such drug benefits.
In what may be the highest drug co-payment in the country, state workers in Georgia will soon have to shell out $100 as co-pay for certain brand-name drugs, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
The Journal, quoting New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting, said employer drug costs have jumped 83.4 percent in the past five years -- an annual of 16.7 percent a year.
Some estimates predict these costs will continue to rise between 11 and 12 percent over the next several years.
Health plans are encouraging the use of cheaper or generic drugs by raising co-payments, using co-insurance, where patients pay a percentage of cost, rather than a flat amount, and even refusing to pay for a costly drug until a less-expensive medicine is tried first, the Journal reported.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International.
