Medicare Drug Payment Pilot to End Due to Lack of Participants

The Biden administration will terminate an experimental Medicare payment model to trim federal spending for prescription drugs at the end of the year.

The voluntary pilot attracted only two participating health plans nationally, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said Thursday.

The “Part D Payment Modernization Model” was launched in January 2020 by the CMS’s Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. It was designed to cut spending in the Medicare prescription drug benefit by creating incentives for health plans, patients, and providers to utilize lower-cost drugs.

The model, which was supposed to continue in its test phase ...