A new statistical brief from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) finds that expenditures for outpatient prescription pain relievers more than tripled from 1996 to 2006, rising from $4.2 billion to $13.2 billion.
The total number of prescription pain reliever purchases during the period also increased, from 163.6 million purchases in 1996 to 230.7 million purchases in 2006. Average expenditures for a person with a least one prescription pain reliever purchase nearly tripled, from $83 in 1996 to $232 in 2006.
Read the AHRQ brief.
