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Annualized per patient costs for blood clotting factor replacement can run upwards of $150,000.¹ When costs are added for physical therapy, emergency room visits, hospitalizations, joint replacement surgeries and major traumas, treating a bleeding disorders patient can add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

Cost savings through assay management

Manufacturers produce assays in varying amounts. Accepted industry practice allows prescriptions to be filled -- and billed -- for as much as 10 percent over the prescribed amount.

Walgreens can help control these costs through our assay management program.

Walgreens attempts to fill all prescriptions closest to the prescribed dose and on the average we are only 1.7 percent over the prescribed amount, because our inventory management procedures and agreements with manufacturers grant us access to a wide array of assays in different sizes.

This approach prevents waste and eliminates the cost of unused or unneeded assays being billed to payors or patients.

Cost savings in action

In one case, we received a patient's blood factor prescription for 3,000 units per dose. We researched which combination of assays would most closely match the prescribed amount and dispensed 3,020 units per dose.

Over six months, a patient on a prophylaxis dosing regimen of three doses per week received 78 doses for a total of 235,560 units during six months.

Per industry standards, other pharmacies could have dispensed as much as 3,300 units per dose (prescribed amount plus 10 percent), totaling 257,400 units of factor.

Assuming an average wholesale price of $1.49 per unit, our assay management program saved $24,198 over six months on one prescription for a patient.

• Standard dispensing: 257,400 units at $1.49 per unit costs $383,526
• Walgreens dispensing: 235,560 units at $1.49 per unit costs $350,984
• Savings difference: $32,542, or $65,084 annually

1. Financial and insurance issues, National Hemophilia Foundation.  Accessed August 2009.