LAUSR

P rescribing therapeutically equivalent, lower-cost generic drugs is among the most cost-effective health care interventions available in the USA. Such cost savings are important for Medicaid, since increased spending on brand-name prescription drugs in recent years has led several programs to reduce their services or limit eligibility requirements. One class of drugs for which generic prescribing could be particularly impactful are pain medications, since opioid analgesics are commonly prescribed in Medicaid. We sought to determine the rate of generic utilization and potential savings from generic substitution across state Medicaid programs for two widely popular classes of opioid formulations with therapeutically equivalent generic versions: oxycodone-acetaminophen and hydrocodone-acetaminophen.