Out-Of-Pocket Costs for Newer Guideline-Directed Antidiabetes Drugs Under Medicare Part D

Drug treatment for patients with type 2 diabetes typically commences with metformin, followed by a second-line drug. Recent guidelines endorse expensive, newer second-line drugs (sodium–glucose cotransporter-2 [SGLT-2] inhibitors and glucagon-like peptide-1 [GLP-1] receptor agonists) in patients with established cardiovascular disease, heart failure, or chronic kidney disease (NEJM JW Gen Med Oct 15 2020 and Ann Intern Med 2020 Sep 1; [e-pub]). Also, expensive dipeptidyl peptidase-4 (DPP-4) inhibitors increasingly are being used as second-line drugs.

In this study, researchers assessed out-of-pocket costs for antidiabetes drugs across more than 3300 Medicare Part D plans nationwide in 2019. Projected annual out-of-pocket costs were US$63 for…