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Plan Design Configurations 
Employers and PBMs use fairly standard terminology to identify cost share amounts.

Table 9 illustrates how the industry categorizes or groups drugs for cost sharing and reimbursement purposes. Managed care’s original, tiered drug benefit, with generic and brand-name drug categories, has been replaced with three-, four- and five-tier configurations (see Table 10).

Plan designs with three or more tiers are used by 75.3 percent of employers. The most commonly used cost sharing approach is a three-tier plan design (generics, preferred brands and nonpreferred brands).

Tables 11 to 17 provide the average copayment and coinsurance amounts for the two-, three- and four-tier plan designs for both retail and mail dispensing channels.


Table 10
: Configurations of Common Plan Designs


Table 11
: Summary of Cost Sharing for Common Plan Configurations


Table 12
: Two-tier Plan Designs with Dollar Copayments


Table 13
: Two-tier Plan Designs with Coinsurance


Table 14
: Three-tier Plan Designs with Dollar Copayments


Table 15
: Three-tier Plan Designs with Coinsurance


Table 16
: Four-tier Plan Designs with Dollar Copayments


Table 17
: Four-tier Plan Designs with Coinsurance


Lowering Copays to Increase Treatment Adherence

 

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