Acute/Maintenance/Specialty/Biologics Formulary Drugs Definitions:Acute medications:This drug category, which includes antibiotics and pain medications, usually treats one-time or short-term conditions. The affordability of most acute medications and run you approximately $100 per year.Maintenance medications:Maintenance medications are often prescribed to treat chronic or long-term conditions, such as high blood pressure and cholesterol, resulting in consistent expenses. On average, the cost per year per plan member is $500. Note: many medications to treat common, long-term chronic conditions are now available in generic form.Specialty/Biologic medications:Commonly require special administration, handling or a high level of patient monitoring and support, and are generally used to treat a specific disease state that may be genetic, complex or rare. Some of these medications treat conditions for which there is no other treatment and have costs that can reach as high as $600,000 per year.