The Medicare Quarterly Part D Spending by Drug dataset presents information on spending for drugs prescribed to Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Part D by physicians and other healthcare providers. Drugs prescribed in the Medicare Part D program are drugs patients generally administer themselves. It also includes spending information for manufacturer(s) of the drugs as well as consumer-friendly information of drug uses and clinical indications.

Drug spending metrics for Part D drugs are based on the gross drug cost, which represents total spending for the prescription claim, including Medicare, plan, and beneficiary payments. The Part D spending metrics do not reflect any manufacturers’ rebates or other price concessions as CMS is prohibited from publicly disclosing such information.

This dataset reports preliminary data that goes beyond the latest date available in the annual Medicare Part D Spending by Drug dataset. The data are updated each quarter and may change with each new release due to claims lag. Once an entire year of data is available with a sufficient run-out period, that data will move out of the preliminary quarterly dataset and into the annual Medicare Part D Spending by Drug dataset. Due to the preliminary nature of the quarterly dataset, we advise using caution when comparing between the annual and quarterly datasets.