The cost of brand-name prescription drugs used to treat workers' compensation injuries are being inflated in many states because of a reliance on a flawed and inconsistent benchmark.

There are, of course, a number of elements that drive medication costs, including unnecessary, improper and expensive branded drug use-factors that can be controlled by a pharmacy benefit manager.

But one factor considerably driving up the numbers is significant inflation of one particularly critical benchmark–the Average Wholesale Price–used in a majority of states for determining workers' comp standard reimbursement rates.

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