Medicare Spent $1.4B On Discarded Part B Drugs in 2017 and 2018: Report
08/21/2020
A new report from MedicareAdvantage.com, an MA insurance broker, analyzed claims data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and found that Medicare spent $695 million on discarded Part B drugs in 2017 and $725 million in 2018.
“The majority of this wasted taxpayer money was spent on unused units of chemotherapy and cancer-treating drugs that were thrown away and unavailable for treating other patients in need of the drugs. Most of this medication and financial waste is due to single-dose vials or containers of medications that include higher doses than are necessary to treat the average patient,” according to the report.