CounterScript - Drug Price Benchmarks

Looks up what US pharmacies actually pay to acquire a drug (the CMS NADAC benchmark, per unit, with its date; for a pen, syringe, autoinjector or cartridge priced per mL whose description states what one holds, nadac.per_container gives the price of one, with container, ml and usd, as candidates and biosimilars do; box sizes are not in the data, so no fill estimate follows), a fair cash-price estimate range, FDA generic equivalents, and Medicare negotiated prices where they apply (medicare_negotiated_prices: one entry per year, including a year CMS has announced, with effective_date, price_30d for a 30-day equivalent supply, and per_unit where the NDCs share one). The input is a drug name with optional strength and form. result_type is one of three values. match: one drug, with prices, provenance and honesty notes; a brand-name drug with no generic alternatives listed also carries generic_equivalence, a dated statement of what the FDA Orange Book shows for it, with its ingredient where the file names one (status no_orange_book_match means our match did not pair the product with a listing, which says nothing either way about generics). A brand-name match can also carry cms_generic_price, CMS's NADAC figure for the corresponding generic drug, with its effective date, a fair cash estimate where a fill quantity applies, and the generic's name when exactly one generic in the index has that price, strength and ingredient. A biologic that the FDA Purple Book lists biosimilars to also carries biosimilars (each with proprietary and proper names, interchangeable, marketing_status, file_month, and a NADAC price where one is indexed) and biosimilars_statement; a biosimilar carries reference_product, with the same kinds of fields and a statement. candidates: the query fits several drugs. Up to 12 are listed, each with its description and price hint, in this order: the drug named on its own first, then combinations with other drugs, then longer names that hold the word (esomeprazole for omeprazole); generics before brands, then alphabetical with doses in number order (2.5 mg before 10 mg), within each. A number in the query matches only that whole number, so a query for 5 mg does not list 2.5 mg or 15 mg; within each group, drugs that hold every query word whole come first. candidates_total gives how many drugs matched; when that is more than 12, message says the list was cut, and adding a strength or form narrows it. A query equal to one candidate's description returns that drug as a match. no_match: the index has no drug matching the query; this does not mean the drug lacks a fair price, since NADAC covers only drugs with enough pharmacy survey data. did_you_mean, where present, lists drug names to search next, and did_you_mean_basis gives the reason: spelling (the name the query spells, apart from spaces and punctuation, without a dose the index lacks, or names beginning with it; a number typed with no unit is part of the name unless the words before it are a drug name, so vanacof 2 does not get vanacof dm, and stays part of it, whatever the basis, where catalog names put a number of their own after those words or an FDA label name holds it, so vagistat 3, a miconazole kit, does not get tioconazole of VAGISTAT-1, nor sore throat 911, a potassium lotion, the phenol SORE THROAT; for a trade name that is its only active ingredient plus more words, such as theophylline-sr, that ingredient), same_ingredient (the index has no drug under the ingredient name in the query, and the names are priced brands whose only active ingredient in the FDA Orange Book is that ingredient, or, for a biologic, priced brands whose proper (ingredient) name in the FDA Purple Book is that name, such as trulicity for dulaglutide; message adds a sentence naming the catalog and its file; store brands of the ingredient may still be priced under their own names) or generic_name (the index has no drug under the brand name in the query; the one name is that brand's active ingredient, or its ingredients joined by "and", in the FDA Orange Book, such as tamsulosin hydrochloride for flomax, and searching it lists the priced products with it; message adds a sentence naming the file; the name is an ingredient, not a statement that any product is a substitute; a pack name a maker's label gives a brand counts as that brand, so z-pak, Pfizer's pack of Zithromax 250 mg tablets, gets azithromycin; a name current FDA labels use for other drugs gets none, so midol, ibuprofen in the Orange Book but acetaminophen, caffeine and pyrilamine on its label, gets no hint, nor does allay, a discontinued hydrocodone combination whose only current label is a sunscreen; and leading words of a trade name that begin a priced name of another drug get none, so 8 hour, of the discontinued aspirin 8-HOUR BAYER, is not aspirin, since the index prices 8 HOUR ACETAMINOPHEN ER; and leading words that are no name of a drug get none: three letters or fewer, such as cap of CAP-PROFEN (epi, short for epinephrine, aside), and everyday words such as extended or junior, of EXTENDED PHENYTOIN SODIUM and JUNIOR STRENGTH ADVIL). A query that finds nothing as typed is read again: with a hyphen between a number and a word as a space, so 8-hour finds what 8 hour finds; with a bracketed part's brackets dropped, then with the part left out, such as eliquis for "eliquis (apixaban)"; and as a label writes a drug name, so a salt finds NADAC's short form or a description without it (sertraline hydrochloride finds SERTRALINE HCL) and amoxicillin and clavulanate potassium finds AMOX-CLAV. A name the FDA Orange Book or Purple Book lists that no description holds as whole words beginning its first or second word finds nothing, so ranexa gets its ingredient rather than TRANEXAMIC ACID. No name is guessed from a misspelling: did_you_mean holds no name with letters the query lacks or changes (lipiter gets none), since a real name a letter or two from another is often a different drug (afrin is not errin). A spelling hint is a search aid, not an equivalent medicine. Every result also carries freshness, one entry per source (nadac, orangebook, mfp, purplebook) giving as_of, the publisher's date on the file in use (for purplebook, which FDA dates by month, the first day of that month); checked, the date of our newest successful fetch of that source; expected, the publishing cadence (weekly, monthly or irregular); and stale, which is true when the NADAC file is more than 10 days old, the Orange Book file more than 45 days old or the month of the Purple Book file ended more than 60 days ago, or when our newest attempt to fetch that source failed (last_attempt_failed then gives that attempt's date, and the file in use is the newest good one we hold), and then statement says so in plain words. For mfp, whose updates are irregular, stale is true only after a failed fetch. A source we have not fetched yet has no as_of or checked.