Trends in Urinary Antispasmodics Utilization and Expenditures for the U.S. Civilian Noninstitutionalized Population, 2000 and 2010

Rising health care costs in general and prescribed medicine costs in particular continue to be a concern for U.S. policymakers and consumers of care. Analyzing total prescription drug costs by therapeutic classes and subclasses provides decision makers and the public with an understanding of the costs and extent to which specific therapeutic classes and subclasses of drugs are contributing to the upturn in total costs. This Statistical Brief provides trends for one therapeutic subclass of prescribed drugs—urinary antispasmodics. This Brief presents trends in utilization and expenditures for outpatient prescription urinary antispasmodics for the years 2000 and 2010. The estimates are for the U.S. civilian noninstitutionalized population and are derived from the 2000 and 2010 Household Component of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS-HC). The Brief compares outpatient prescription urinary antispasmodics for 2000 and 2010, using the number of persons obtaining at least one prescription, total expenditures, and total number of prescriptions, as well as average annual cost per person and average drug cost. Only prescriptions purchased or obtained in an outpatient setting are included in these estimates. Prescription medicines administered in an inpatient setting or in a clinic or physician's office are excluded. Expenditure estimates are presented in real dollars; estimates for 2000 were inflated to 2010 dollars based on the GDP Price Index (https://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/about_meps/Price_Index.shtml). All differences discussed in the text are statistically significant at the 0.05 level.