Downers Grove, IL - June 22, 2015 - We're proud to announce the release of our 2014 First Script Drug Trends Analysis. The report provides a view into traditional Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) trends that align with previous annual reports. This year, however, we're excited to share an additional and fully transparent view into our total pharmacy experience - incorporating prescriptions that have been managed as well as those that are (yet) unmanaged.

Over the past decade, workers' compensation pharmacy care has changed and evolved in many ways. Today a significant number of injured workers receive their medications outside the protective oversight available in a traditional retail pharmacy setting. The increased use of non-traditional dispensing channels, such as compounding pharmacies and physicians who directly dispense, has created even greater risks to injured worker safety and to the cost burden on the system. These additional cost drivers led to our decision to expand the scope of our analysis and report.

In an effort to mitigate mounting safety and cost risks, we've expanded our management reach beyond the traditional network and into non-traditional pharmacy channels - billers for physician-dispensed medications, occupational-medicine clinics, third-party billers, external mail houses, and compounding prescription sources. By including every possible pharmaceutical transaction, we're able to strengthen our decision-support and interventions to improve clinical outcomes and pricing opportunities for our clients.

"Coventry's 2014 Drug Trends Analysis marks an industry first, and offers an enhanced examination of prescription drug trends that consider the entire pharmacy experience," said Betsy Robinson, senior vice president of product development and marketing. "To produce a more accurate representation of trends across the diverse dispensing channels operating in workers' comp today, we expanded our analytic lens to incorporate all dispensing sources, moving beyond what has been presented through the more narrow focus on retail network and mail order pharmacy data in traditional reports."

For more information on Coventry's review of pharmacy trends within workers' compensation, please download the 2014 First Script Drug Trends Analysis.