Health care costs in the United States are high. Annual health insurance premiums now average nearly $10,000 per individual and more than $25,000 per family. Overall, health care costs have risen 188% since 2005 – much of it driven by ever-rising prescription expenditures.
When solving any problem, we typically start with the “low-hanging fruit,” right? Well, in this case, that low-hanging fruit is wasted medication. If we can reclaim some of what isn’t being used, it could significantly impact costs across the board.
How much does the United States spend on wasted medication each year?
A lot. Consider:
- The value of wasted medication – about $11 billion per year, based on the medications’ retail prices.
- The dollars wasted on medication that is never taken – It’s difficult to quantify all together, but estimates show that payers spend $5.4 billion per year on medication patients should have taken, but didn’t – and that’s just for adults who take one daily medication. Countless Americans take many more prescriptions per day, hence the likely more accurate $11 billion total.
- The cost of disposal – There’s a rather significant cost associated with disposing of medical waste. It cannot simply be tossed in the trash. And disposal of regulated medical waste, like pharmaceuticals, costs more than double per pound versus the cost of regular trash disposal.
- Each year, the U.S. alone generates an estimated 3.5 million tons of medical waste – generating disposal costs of more than $5 billion. And that doesn’t include the significant community-wide costs that can result from the inadvisable practice of flushing unused medications, which can contaminate water supplies for countless people – especially when those medications are highly potent and not water-soluble, as with many reclaimed specialty medications.
That means the United States is spending billions of dollars each year on medication that is never being used, plus billions more to properly dispose of the waste. We can do better than that.
Could rescuing unused medication lower health care costs in the United States?
Absolutely.
If we stop wasting money, costs aren’t so high.
Consider that unused medication number above. Payers, like insurance companies, are spending billions paying for medications no one is taking. When was the last time your health insurance premiums went down? Maybe never. If costs for the payers rise, so do your premiums.
Some medication waste is unavoidable. Our own rescue data shows that, oftentimes, medication is available for donation because the patient passed away prior to taking it, they experienced negative side effects and were unable to continue, or their condition changed and required something different. But those unavoidable extras don’t need to become waste. For every medication that is available for a reason like that, countless patients are going without because they can’t afford it. Medication rescue can turn a problem into a solution.
Healthier is less expensive.
On average, more than half of Americans don’t take their medications as prescribed. There are a lot of challenges to adherence, but one of the most common is cost. Simply put, too many patients, even those with insurance, can’t afford the prescriptions they need.
What if we redirected the unused medication to help patients in need remain adherent? Let’s consider one of the most common and most costly health complications: a heart attack.
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- Average cost of treating a heart attack, including the resulting hospitalization: about $20,000 to $30,000, depending on the specifics (according to the American Heart Association Journal)
- Cost of a statin (per month, without insurance): about $10 for a generic
- Cost of an antiplatelet (per month, without insurance): about $20 for a generic or about $500 for a brand name (like Plavix)
- Average cost of reclaiming medication: $26.01 per dose processed
- This number is based on research by RemediChain regarding its operating costs and impact. It considers the nonprofit’s entire operating budget – from pharmacy staff to technology and more. The organization primarily reclaims high-cost medications like oral chemotherapy or brand name anticoagulants, which sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars per month. Yet, on average, the organization’s operating costs total just $1 per $10 of reclaimed value. And as operations scale, the gap widens significantly, with the organization reporting values of $50 worth of reclaimed medication per $1 of operating cost in 2025.
There are countless medications to treat the conditions that can lead to heart attacks, but for our purposes we’ll focus on statins and antiplatelet agents, which are some of the most commonly prescribed. While there are outliers, even the most costly name brands of these drugs don’t cost $30,000 per year – meaning if a patient can remain adherent to their preventive prescriptions, payers will save significantly on treating complications. And for patients who may not have access to their medications at all, reclaimed prescriptions can provide a path to a much more cost-effective preventive regimen.
Let’s consider the numbers.
Each year, there are about 805,000 heart attacks in the United States (per the CDC). The vast majority are caused by coronary artery disease (CAD) – which is often treated, with the goal of preventing these heart attacks, using antiplatelet agents (with name brands like Plavix).
Now, it’s unlikely that medication adherence could prevent all those heart attacks, but what if we could reduce the number by one-third? That could, conservatively, save payers more than $5 billion per year on heart attacks alone. Even better, it could save hundreds of thousands of lives.
Best of all, that logic applies across the board to a variety of conditions.
How can the United States support Medication Rescue?
Currently, medication rescue is a piecemeal effort. There are a few things we can do to improve it for everyone’s benefit.
1. Provide federal oversight.
As it stands, medication rescue is managed by individual states. Unfortunately, this creates a complex web of laws and regulations that can make it difficult for patients to access medications they need. Additionally, some federal regulations, such as the Drug Supply Chain Security Act, while not a barrier to reclamation, can be daunting for those without a deep understanding of the security of a well-managed process. Some states, like Tennessee, have made rescue easier by allowing anyone in the United States to donate to approved organizations within its borders. In all aspects, but especially from a distribution perspective, it would be helpful to have a legal standard all states could follow.
2. Streamline the collection and distribution of reclaimed medications.
There are a number of organizations – some nonprofit, some for-profit, and some affiliated with state governments – that collect and share unused medications. Unfortunately, few are interconnected. It’s common to see one organization taking in the medications, then passing them off to someone else for distribution. This, too, can hurt patients’ ability to access the medications. As a medication donor and as a patient in need, we recommend seeking pharmacy-focused organizations that do both, like RemediChain.
3. Payers should consider providing support to patients to access donated medication.
Even patients with insurance sometimes struggle to meet their co-insurance or co-pay requirements. In fact, more than 85% of the patients who request support from RemediChain do have health insurance, they just can’t afford their co-pays or lack coverage for the specific medication they need. As mentioned above, it is far more valuable for a plan’s patients to remain adherent to a preventive medication than to experience costly (potentially preventable) complications. Where this practice would really show benefits is among some of the most vulnerable patients covered by programs like Medicare and Medicaid – and a win for those programs (through lower costs) and the people they serve (through better health) is a win for us all!
Have medication to donate or need assistance accessing your necessary medications?
Medication donors can click here to access RemediChain’s medication donation form.
Patients in need of medication can click here to access RemediChain’s request medication form.
