Pharmaceutical Cost Control Assignment

The pharmaceutical industry has been monumentally beneficial to healthcare across the world. Prescription drugs have impacted society by increasing life expectancy in ways that include reducing illnesses, stabilizing chronic disease progression, avoiding preventable surgical operations, reducing hospital stays, and improving the quality of life of people suffering with chronic diseases. With that being said, rising pharmaceutical costs negatively impact many lives because high drug costs creates limited access to medications and therapies needed to overcome and sustain acute and chronic health conditions which in turn creates negative health outcomes. Between 2013 and 2015, net spending on prescription drugs increased approximately 20% in the United States, outpacing a forecasted 11% increase in aggregate health care expenditures.

In 2013, per capita spending on prescription drugs was $858 billion compared with an average of $400 billion for 19 other industrialized nations. In the United States, prescription medications now comprises an estimated 17% of overall personal health care services (Kesselheim, Avorn, & Sarpatwari, 2016). This paper discusses ways to address controlling the cost of pharmaceuticals as it relates to the healthcare delivery system, economics, and policy, it’s stakeholders and the cause and effect controlling cost has on the stakeholders, as well as the intended impact of pharmaceutical cost control on the future of healthcare.Pharmaceutical Cost Control Assignment