Evernorth Drug Trend Report Shows Varied Pandemic Impacts With Chart: Cigna: Pandemic Led to Fewer New Scripts, Better Adherence
In the 2020 Drug Trend Report recently released by Evernorth, the Cigna Corp. division added yet another chapter to the growing volume of data detailing the profound effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on health care.
On the one hand, the massive amount of deferred routine and elective health care utilization had a dampening effect on the number of new medication users that Evernorth — which houses the PBM Express Scripts — recorded in 2020. New users of asthma/COPD medications dropped the most, by 7.1% year over year, likely reflecting the avoidance of clinical settings among a group that is at particular risk of contracting severe COVID-19. People newly treated with drugs for high blood pressure and inflammatory conditions were the second and third most impacted groups, declining by 5.3% and 5.2%, respectively (see infographic, p. 4).
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