News and Updates

Medi-Span® Joins RED BOOK™ in Plans to Continue Publishing AWPs

(July 8, 2010)

Wolters Kluwer Health, publisher of Medi-Span, has announced that it "intends to publish AWP (or a similarly determined benchmark price) until relevant industry or governmental organizations develop a viable, generally accepted alternative price benchmark to replace AWP."  AWP stands for Average Wholesale Price and the publisher's announcement reverses it plans to cease AWP publication in 2011.  The publisher adds that "despite our efforts and those of other industry participants, no comprehensive alternative benchmark price is yet available."  Read the complete announcement.

This follows the April 8, 2010 announcement by Thomson Reuters, publisher of the RED BOOK Drug References, which included that while "some vendors have announced they will stop publishing the Average Wholesale Price (AWP) of drugs in 2011...Thomson Reuters will continue to supply this needed information in RED BOOK."  Read more in from Thomson Reuters.

No update to its original announcement of plans to cease publication of AWPs in 2011 has come from the third major publisher of drug pricing information, First Databank,

AWP drug price benchmarks are widely-used to determine reimbursement for medications provided to patients as part of their home infusion therapies when covered by Medicare Parts B and D, many state Medicaid plans, other government health plans, and commercial insurers.  In addition to home infusion pharmacies, AWP is used to determine payment to retail pharmacies.  We note that payment is usually a percentage of AWP.