Study: Insurers spend nearly $130M a year on ivermectin prescriptions

Ivermectin prescriptions spiked during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the increased demand is leading to significant amounts of wasteful spending, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of Michigan and Boston University tracked spending on ivermectin, which has no proven efficacy against COVID-19, from late 2020 through mid-2021. The analysts estimated that for the week of Aug. 13, 2021, about 88,000 prescriptions for ivermectin were dispensed, the vast majority of which were for COVID-19.

Private insurers paid out nearly $1.6 million in ivermectin prescriptions, while Medicare Advantage paid out an estimated $924,720. Extrapolated out over a full year, that's $129.7 million in wasteful spending, according to the study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study "findings suggest that insurers heavily subsidized the costs of ivermectin prescriptions for COVID-19, even though economic theory holds that insurers should not cover ineffective care."

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The researchers said the true amount of wasteful spending is notably higher as the study does not include estimates of Medicaid spending.

Mean out-of-pocket spending was $22.48 for patients with private insurance and $13.78 for patients enrolled in MA. Mean reimbursement was $35.75 for private plans and $39.13 in MA, for total mean spending of $58.23 in private plans and $52.91 in MA.

The study suggests insurers could be doing more to mitigate these costs, including traditional avenues of utilization management such as prior authorization.

The "findings suggest insurers could prevent substantial waste by restricting ivermectin coverage; for example, by requiring prior authorization," the researchers wrote. "Although these restrictions might impede ivermectin use for non–COVID-19 indications, low pre-pandemic levels of dispensing suggest this use is infrequent."

"Consequently, the restrictions could reduce wasteful spending, and the number of patients who would experience barriers to evidence-based treatment for ivermectin would be small," they said.