Outpatient Antibiotic Use: Pharmacy Prescriptions Dispensed to Medicare Part D Beneficiaries
Total Outpatient Antibiotic Prescriptions
69M
Total Medicare Part D antibiotic prescriptions dispensed in 2023
Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Rate
1,343
Prescriptions per 1,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries in 2023
Prescriber Specialty with Highest Proportion of Antibiotic Prescriptions, 2023
19%
Nurse Practitioner
Outpatient Antibiotic Use: Pharmacy Prescriptions Dispensed to Medicare Part D Beneficiaries
Population and Data
Outpatient antibiotic prescribing can be tracked through publicly available data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). The population eligible for Medicare Part D enrollment includes adults ages ≥65 years and adults ages <65 years with qualifying disabilities (13-16%).
- Data Source
- Years Included
- 2017 - 2023
- Resources
- Antibiotic Prescribing and Use
- MMWR: Identifying Higher-Volume Antibiotic Outpatient Prescribers Using Publicly Available Medicare Part D Data
- Annual Antibiotic Prescribing and Use Reports
- Data Methodology [PDF] - data collection method and limitations
- Antibiotic Class Definitions
- CMS Part D Antibiotic User Public File R Pipeline | GitHub
Geographic Locations
Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Rates for Medicare Part D Beneficiaries by State
This map displays antibiotic prescription rates per 1,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries across U.S. states by antibiotic class and year.
Download expanded data set here.
Data source: Medicare Part D Prescribers – by Geography and Drug; CMS Program Statistics - Medicare Part D Enrollment
Outpatient Rates by State, 2023 and All Classes
Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Rates for Medicare Part D Beneficiaries by Region
This map displays antibiotic prescription rates per 1,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries dispensed in pharmacies across U.S. regions by antibiotic class and year.
Download expanded data set here.
Data source: Medicare Part D Prescribers – by Geography and Drug; CMS Program Statistics - Medicare Part D Enrollment
Outpatient Rates by Region, 2023 and All Classes
Changes Over Time
Changes Over Time in Outpatient Antibiotic Prescription Rates by Antibiotic Class and State
This graph displays prescriptions by antibiotic classes dispensed per 1,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries in U.S. outpatient pharmacies from 2017–2023.
Download expanded data set here.
Data source: Medicare Part D Prescribers – by Geography and Drug; CMS Program Statistics - Medicare Part D Enrollment
All Classes Prescribing Rate, All States
Prescriber Specialty
Percentage of Antibiotic Prescriptions by Prescriber Specialty, Year and State
This graph displays the percentage of outpatient antibiotic prescriptions by prescriber specialty, year, and state. Prescriber specialty is identified in the dataset by the prescriber's National Provider Identifier (NPI).
Download expanded data set here.
Data source: Medicare Part D Prescribers - by Provider
Prescription Percentages by Prescriber Specialty, All States 2023
Footnotes
- These data are from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) Part D Public Use Files (PUF) database and reflect outpatient antibiotic prescriptions dispensed for Medicare Part D beneficiaries from U.S. pharmacies. All outpatient antibiotic prescriptions exclude the following types of products: tuberculosis agents, antimalarials, topical agents (topical ophthalmic, optic, vaginal, and dermatological agents, etc.).
- Three CMS PUFs are used for these analyses. The numerator for prescribing rates use the Medicare Part D Prescribers by Geography and Drug dataset and include only oral antibiotic prescriptions. The denominator for prescribing rates is obtained from the CMS Program Statistics - Medicare Part D Enrollment. The percentage of prescriptions by provider specialty is calculated from the Medicare Part D Prescribers - by Provider dataset and include all outpatient antibiotic prescriptions (not limited to oral antibiotic prescriptions).
- Data reflect annual rates of antibiotic prescriptions dispensed per 1,000 Medicare Part D beneficiaries, i.e. the number of antibiotic prescriptions dispensed per year for every 1,000 beneficiaries in the Medicare Part D plan. Annual rates allow for comparisons of the number of antibiotic prescriptions dispensed in different geographic areas or over time while controlling for differences in the size of the underlying enrolled population.
- Part D Prescribers data does not include drugs with fewer than 11 Part D drug claims. There may be underestimation due to potential suppression of any claim or beneficiary counts between 1 and 10.
- Data are not available for geographic regions smaller than states.
- Antibiotic class defines a set of related antibiotics. State-level rates of penicillins, fluoroquinolones, cephalosporins, macrolides, beta-lactams with increased activity (e.g. amoxicillin-clavulanate), tetracyclines, trimethoprim-sulfamethoxazole, lincosamides (e.g. clindamycin), urinary anti-infectives, and other antibiotics are displayed.