co-founded by Cuban and Alex Oshmyansky, M.D., Ph.D., in 2022<\/a>, is an online DTC pharmacy that sells medications using a transparent cost-plus pricing model.<\/p>\nThe study found that, while DTC pharmacy users paid an average of 75% more out of pocket, the total annual costs were 413% lower than those of insured patients filling prescriptions at commercial pharmacies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe difference was close to zero for a lot of these different medications,\u201d said first author Amanda Gusovsky Chevalier, Ph.D., M.P.H., assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine at Ohio State\u2019s College of Medicine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason that\u2019s notable is because this price that patients can get directly from a website is the same as the cost to patients who, on top of buying medications, are paying a premium for an insurance plan that\u2019s probably coming out of their paycheck,\u201d Gusovsky Chevalier said. \u201cSo the cost you\u2019re paying that is subsidized by your insurance provider is the same as what you could pay at the Mark Cuban pharmacy. This could be a great option for uninsured patients who are paying completely out of pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n
A closer look at the math<\/p>\n
Researchers analyzed neurologic drugs used to treat conditions like Alzheimer\u2019s disease, multiple sclerosis (MS), peripheral neuropathy, Parkinson\u2019s disease and myasthenia gravis. They compared 2024 DTC prices to model-estimated insurance costs derived from a decade of commercial claims data.<\/p>\n
The findings showed that, while insured patients benefit from lower copays, the system\u2019s broader costs \u2014 including premiums and insurer payments \u2014 drive total spending sharply higher.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the DTC model\u2019s transparent pricing structure, which cuts out pharmacy benefit managers, resulted in significantly lower overall costs.<\/p>\n
MS drugs teriflunomide and droxidopa were among the medications with lower out-of-pocket costs on the Cost Plus platform \u2014 40% and 18% lower, respectively. The biggest systemic savings appeared in total costs: teriflunomide (-5622%), droxidopa (-4777%) and dimethyl fumarate (-1894%).<\/p>\n
If every commercial prescription were filled through a DTC pharmacy, the study estimated aggregate out-of-pocket expenditures would rise by $82 million \u2014 but total U.S. drug spending could drop by roughly $9 million.<\/p>\n
Market limits \u2014 and opportunities<\/p>\n
Still, researchers cautioned that DTC pharmacies currently cover a narrow slice of the market. At the time of the analysis, Cost Plus listed only 33 of 79 neurologic medications \u2014 about 42% of those available commercially.<\/p>\n
That limited formulary could complicate care for patients using both DTC and traditional pharmacies. Fragmented medication records may create safety risks and complicate coordination between prescribers and pharmacists.<\/p>\n
The authors concluded that there are real benefits, especially for uninsured patients. They also advise caution for patients who work both sides of the system to pay the lowest prices, as they risk having fragmented prescription records that could lead to unintended drug interactions.<\/p>\n
What this means for physicians<\/p>\n
For physicians, the study serves as both a new resource and a policy question.<\/p>\n
Online pharmacies like Cost Plus may offer patients without coverage a way to access essential medications at competitive rates, but they also expose inefficiencies in the private insurance model, where administrative costs and negotiated markups often overshadow direct drug prices.<\/p>\n
As Gusovsky Chevalier and colleagues note, these findings come against the backdrop of rapidly rising neurologic drug costs. <\/p>\n
In a related study published earlier this year in Neurology<\/a>, the same team found that out-of-pocket costs for new-to-market neurologic medications rose by more than 1,700% between 2012 and 2021, with aggregate migraine drug spending climbing 1,993% during that period.<\/p>\nThe bigger picture<\/p>\n
The results point to a system increasingly out of sync with patient affordability.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur research has shown that the costs of medications just continue to rise through insurance plans, and it\u2019s really important to find ways for patients to access medicines,\u201d Gusovsky Chevalier said. \u201cI think this adds to a larger body of evidence showing that these direct-to-consumer pharmacies have the potential to disrupt the market in some significant way in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
That said, disruption alone won\u2019t fix the problem. Unless insurers respond by reducing premiums or simplifying pricing structures, insured patients may still pay more overall \u2014 even if the sticker price looks lower.<\/p>\n
For now, Cost Plus and similar platforms may serve as a practical tool for uninsured patients, a bargaining chip for physicians advocating on behalf of cost-burdened patients, and a wake-up call to a system where the \u201cinsured\u201d sometimes pay the higher price.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Cuban \u00a9 Christopher Willard\/ABC via Getty Images A new analysis by researchers at The Ohio State University…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":217940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[123214,97,252,121811,253,123213,123216,123215],"class_list":["post-217939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-direct-to-consumer-pharmacy","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-health-insurance-costs","tag-healthcare","tag-mark-cuban-cost-plus-drug-company","tag-neurologic-medication-costs","tag-prescription-drug-pricing-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/217940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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