Generics cost less than brands.
By Deborah Epstein Contributing Editor Both managed care and generic medications are intended to help contain health care costs. One would think, therefore, that managed care patients use more generics than other patients. One would be wrong. HMO use of generics is actually about the same as national use, which reached 46 percent of all prescriptions in 1996, says Ed Thwaite, president of E.W. Thwaite Associates Inc., a Totowa, N.J.-based consultancy. IMS America, too, reported that managed care's use of generics is unexpectedly low.