Inpatient hospital drug costs rose about 38% to $990 per patient admission between 2013 and 2015, according to a report released today by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and the Federation of American Hospitals (FAH). But what’s most surprising about the data is that the list of top offenders is dominated by old drugs, some of which have been on the market for decades. Many times, the prices of these products increased in random and unpredictable ways, reported the AHA.
That makes keeping up with rising drug prices “like playing Whac-A-Mole,” said Scott Knoer, chief pharmacy officer of the Cleveland Clinic, during a press briefing about the data. Just when one drug’s price stabilizes, he explained, another shoots up, making for a system that’s “clearly broken.”
