Community Corner

New Jersey Tops Country in Prescribing Brand Name Drugs

Overuse of brand-name medications vs. generics costs Medicare Part D billions annually.

Written by Andrew Kitchenman, NJ Spotlight

New Jersey Medicare recipients are more likely to be prescribed brand-name drugs than their counterparts anywhere else in the country, putting the Garden State at the forefront of a national trend of what some say is a wasteful overprescribing of brand-name medication.

The public-interest watchdog ProPublica published an article on Monday detailing how Medicare fails to rein in prescribers’ overuse of brand names compared with generic drugs, which can be equally effective. That leads to higher costs, which are borne by federal taxpayers, who subsidize the Medicare program.

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ProPublica has also created a tool that makes it possible to search the Medicare database by doctor, city, and ZIP code to see the number of brand-name drugs that have been prescribed by individuals or by location.

The information ProPublica compiled for the report makes clear that practitioners in New Jersey are ahead of the curve in prescribing brand names through the Medicare Part D benefit, which provides for prescription drugs. Of the prescriptions that New Jerseyans receive, 28 percent specify brand names, ranking it first in the country and well above the national average of 21.2 percent.

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NJ Spotlight is an issue-driven news website that provides critical insight to New Jersey’s communities and businesses. It is non-partisan, independent, policy-centered and community-minded.


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