Prescription drug costs under the state employees' health plan have run so wild that even a recently touted savings of $24 million a year — resulting from new restrictions on controversial compounded medicines — has been wiped out by an overall cost increase twice that large. As soon as officials address one problem with prescription costs, another arises. It's like the arcade game Whac-A-Mole, in which a toy mole pops his head up, and as soon as you whack it down, another pops up from a different hole, and then another and another. New state comptroller's statistics, obtained by Government Watch, show that taxpayers funded nearly $332 million in prescriptions for the 200,000 participants in the state health benefits program during the 12 months that ended June 30 — up about $53 million, or 18.8 percent, from the previous year's $279 million. Moreover, the cost per participant jumped by an even higher percentage — 24.7 percent — because there were fewer state employees, retirees and family members participating in the program during the more recent year. Comptroller Kevin Lembo, the elected official in charge of running the state employees' health plan, has been using the Whac-A-Mole analogy for the past year in conversations about the problems with prescription drug costs. He did it again in a phone interview Friday. "Something else always pops up. You always feel like you're chasing the next problem, and you're battling people sitting in rooms thinking of how to take advantage of programs designed to support the health and life of others," he said. Tyrone's comment:  This phenomenon, "Something else always pops up..." is referred to as ballooning.  In other words, when one loophole is closed the traditional PBM will look for another loophole to account for the lost revenue.  Traditional PBMs have internal staff whose sole purpose is to drive incremental revenue from client contracts.  To make matters worse, this process of hiding cash flows doesn't begin until the ink is dry on the contract!  The only sure fire way to avoid this pitfall [overpayments] is to enter into a fiduciary agreement.  He attributed the latest $53 million escalation to a general skyrocketing of costs in the national pharmaceutical market, something that he said the state government has little influence over and that Congress needs to fix. "The factors behind rising pharmacy costs include market consolidation, new pricing models and outright profiteering. Projections indicate no future relief as pharmacy costs are expected to continue to rise at an exorbitant rate in the coming years. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies are recording historic profits," Lembo said in written testimony he submitted this past week to the U.S. House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee. It's an all-Democrat panel co-chaired by U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, who represents Connecticut's 3rd Congressional District. Based on Congress' record of dealing with major health care issues, any quick solution is doubtful. But it appears that a Connecticut problem that reared its head in the past few years has been pretty much whacked. That…

Why is this document important?  Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.  The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders. How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying Step #1:  Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month. Step #2:  In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list. Step #3:  Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement.  It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions. Step #4:  Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem. Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month. -- Tip -- Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving. When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.

At the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Conference Nexus 2015 in Orlando, Florida, Aimee Tharaldson, PharmD, a senior clinical consultant in emerging therapeutics at Express Script, presented a session “Specialty Pharmaceuticals in Development." During the session, held on October 27, Tharaldson identified several specialty medications that are likely to be approved in 2016, and she spoke about how those medications could affect the managed care pharmacy industry. [Click to Enlarge] Here's a closer look at four diseases and conditions that Tharaldson says are likely to be heavily impacted by newly approved specialty medications in late 2015 and 2016. 1. Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer (NSLC) Genentech’s alectinib is an oral ALK inhibitor that is expected to be approved by March 4, 2016, for the treatment of ALK+ NSCLC who have progressed on, or are intolerant to, crizotinib (I would use generic name here). It will compete with Novartis’ Zykadia in this patient population. AstraZeneca’s osimertinib and Clovis Oncology’s rociletinib are oral epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitors that are expected to be approved by February 2016 and March 30, 2016, respectively. They are pending approval for the treatment of EGFR and T790M mutation-positive NSCLC. 2. Multiple Myeloma Bristol-Myers Squibb and AbbVie’s Empliciti (elotuzumab) is a biologic drug that may be approved by March 1, 2016, for use in combination with Revlimid (lenalidomide) and dexamethasone to treat relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Janssen’s daratumumab is another biologic drug that could be initially approved by March 9, 2016, as monotherapy to treat patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. Takeda’s ixazomib citrate is the first oral proteasome inhibitor that may be approved by March 10, 2016, to treat relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma in combination with Revlimid and dexamethasone (all-oral regimen). 3. Severe Asthma GlaxoSmithKline’s Nucala (mepolizumab) is an interleukin-5 inhibitor that expected to be approved by November 4, 2015, for the treatment of patients with severe eosinophilic asthma. Teva’s reslizumab is another interleukin-5 inhibitor that is expected to be approved by March 30, 2016, for severe eosinophilic asthma. 4. Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) BioMarin’s drisapersen is expected to be approved by December 27, 2015, for the treatment of DMD amenable to exon 51 skipping. Sarepta Therapeutic’s eteplirsen is expected to be approved by February 26, 2016, for the treatment of DMD amenable to exon 51 skipping. Both drugs treat the underlying cause of DMD by allowing the production of a functional dystrophin protein. There are approximately 20,000 boys in the U.S. with DMD. This rare disease is caused by mutations in the dystrophin gene, resulting in the absence or defect of the dystrophin protein. Patients experience progressive loss of muscle function, often making them wheelchair bound before the age of 12. Respiratory and cardiac muscle can also be affected by the disease. Few patients survived past the age of 30. Up to 13% of boys with DMD have dystrophin gene mutations/deletions amendable to an exon 51 skip. Approximately 2,600 boys in the U.S. have DMD with exon 51 skip. These drugs may…

Why is this document important?  Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.  The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders. How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying Step #1:  Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month. Step #2:  In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list. Step #3:  Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement.  It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions. Step #4:  Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem. Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month. -- Tip -- Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving. When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.

Amgen Inc. and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care have agreed to a pay-for-performance plan for the new cholesterol drug Repatha, the provider announced November 9, 2015. Repatha (evolocumab) was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in August for use in certain patients whose high levels of LDL, or bad cholesterol, have not responded to dietary and drug interventions. At full price the drug costs $14,100 per year. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care (HPHC), which serves New England, estimates that 1 percent of its members will be eligible to take the drug, Joan Fallon, HPHC spokeswoman, told Bloomberg BNA in an interview Nov. 10. Three Types of Discounts The health plan negotiated three types of discounts for Repatha, Fallon said. HPHC will receive a discount simply for “preferring” Repatha, Fallon said. The health plan also will receive a rebate if the drug fails to lower the cholesterol in members to the degree indicated by the drug's clinical trials, Fallon said. Finally, if more members end up using the drug than was anticipated during negotiations, HPHC also will receive a rebate, Fallon said. Tyrone's comment:  The pay-for-performance (PFP) model is better for payers than the fee-for-service model, but traditional PBMs will still take advantage of loopholes in this pricing model in order to hide cash flow from third-party payers.  Download my white paper to better understand the flow of money and opaque tactics employed by PBMs to disguise rebates. Fallon declined to say how much the discount and rebates are worth and described that information as confidential aspects of its contract with Amgen. The pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts Holding Co. estimated that Repatha and similar drugs could cost $100 billion a year retail, given its high price and that 10 million or more Americans would be eligible for the drug. The cost to Medicare would be $27 billion, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated. Other Arrangements  The promise and high price of Repatha and other drugs, including some gene therapies, has sparked much debate among public and private payers about alternative pricing arrangements, including pay-for-performance and paying in installments. For example, Spark Therapeutics Inc., of Philadelphia, is considering installment payments for its proposed gene therapy to treat blindness, and Bluebird Bio Inc., of Cambridge, Mass. is in discussions with insurers about alternative payment plans. “Agreeing to pricing models that align payment with appropriate outcomes is critical if we are to better manage increasing drug costs. We take very seriously our responsibility to ensure that the dollars we spend on health care are used wisely and give our members access to the highest quality care,” Michael Sherman, HPHC chief medical officer, said in the Nov. 9 announcement. Novartis Discount  Novartis AG announced July 8 that it would offer a pay-for-performance discount to all U.S. insurers for its new drug to treat heart failure, Entresto. An Entresto prescription costs about $4,500 per year. A Novartis official predicted at the time that the industry would move toward more pay-for-performance arrangements. Repatha is one…

Why is this document important?  Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.  The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders. How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying Step #1:  Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month. Step #2:  In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list. Step #3:  Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement.  It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions. Step #4:  Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem. Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month. -- Tip -- Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving. When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.

Each Thursday, on transparentrx.com, I post our pharmacy's net invoice cost for popular generic and brand medications. Visit and monitor the price changes yourself so that you don't have to rely solely on third parties. In God We Trust, but for all others we verify. Dive Brief: According to insurers, prices for some commonly used generics have increased between 15 and 75 times their original prices. Insurers and others are concerned about rising generic drug prices, because of the reliance of these drugs in the U.S. (According to a recent report from the Generic Pharmaceutical Association, 88% of all prescriptions dispensed in the U.S. are generics.) Spending on prescription drugs is the fastest growing healthcare cost. In Massachusetts, spending on prescription drugs increased 13% in 2014, while overall healthcare spending increased by 4.8%. Dive Insight: Courtesy of American Action Forum It's true that some of the roughly 12,000 available generic drugs have increased in price within the last two years, including drugs such as amitriptyline, an antidepressant, which increased in price from four cents per pill in 2013 to $1.03 per pill in 2015, as well as captopril, a medication for hypertension, which increased from 11 cents for a 12.5-mg pill in 2013 to 91 cents for the same pill in 2015. And there are many other examples. What's driving the increases? According to experts, several factors, including increasing costs of chemical and other raw materials used to produce the drugs; lack of price regulation in the U.S.; and declining competition due to increased consolidation in the generics industry. These factors need to be addressed—especially the issue related to lack of competition. But there is also another perspective: According to the 2014 Express Scripts Trend Report, since 2008 the cost of brand drugs has almost doubled, while generic drug prices have almost been cut in half. In a separate analysis, AARP reported that generic drug prices fell by 4% in 2013. According to that analysis, generic drug prices have declined steadily in the last 10 years. One reason that payers are still feeling the pinch and complaining about price increases is that, while some of the hikes may be declining (or are modest in nature), use of these medications stretches so far across the market that winds up being a huge cost burden anyways. By Nicole Gray

Why is this document important?  Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.  The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders. How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying Step #1:  Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month. Step #2:  In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list. Step #3:  Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement.  It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions. Step #4:  Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem. Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month. -- Tip -- Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving. When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.

The recent wave of mergers among pharmacy benefit managers may give those firms more power and clout, but it's unclear whether employers who work with those PBMs will be in store for better deals or major headaches. Click to Enlarge Much of the merger mania of the health care industry is driven by PBMs — those behind-the-scenes firms that handle prescription drug benefits for self-insured employers. They deal with drug claims information and processing and secure discounts and rebates by negotiating with retail pharmacies and pharmaceutical companies. Tyrone's comment:  PBMs also handle prescription drug benefits for fully-insured employers. Usually, the larger the PBM, the more influence it wields in negotiating better prices and rebates and, in theory, passing those savings on to employer clients and plan members, experts say. If the recent wave of consolidation is any indication, PBMs have taken the “bigger is better” mantra to heart. In July, United Healthcare Inc.'s Optum Inc. closed its deal with Catamaran Corp., making Optum the third-largest PBM based on prescription volume. In August, CVS Health Corp., parent of second-largest PBM CVS/Caremark, bought Omnicare Inc. and in June, agreed to acquire Target Corp.'s nearly 1,700 pharmacies and 80 medical clinics. More recently, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. announced plans in October to acquire Rite Aid Corp., effectively scooping up Rite Aid's Envision Pharmaceutical Services, a small PBM doing business as EnvisionRx, in the process. Consolidation among PBMs has been going on for years. Express Scripts Holding Co. secured its throne as the largest PBM after its 2012 acquisition of Medco Health Solutions Inc., and CVS bought Caremark L.L.C. in 2007. Effects on employers The implications for employer clients who work with a PBM that merges with or is acquired by another organization depends heavily on the type of deal, said Allan Zimmerman, national pharmacy practice leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P. in Kansas City, Missouri. A PBM that buys another PBM primarily gets scale and the potential for better deals with drugmakers, but improved service quality also is a possibility, Mr. Zimmerman said. For instance, the PBM being acquired may have a better technology platform that the parent PBM can utilize. What's most interesting to watch, however, is “when you see a PBM acquiring a vertical in their supply chain” or becoming a vertical component in another organization's supply chain, he said. “What that does is it really gives the PBM a unique opportunity to negotiate real aggressive discounts from their supply chain verticals beyond just the pharmaceutical companies,” such as at the retail stores, Mr. Zimmerman said. Those types of deals can “provide some leveragability for the PBMs to get the plan sponsor, the employer, greater discounts based on just a pure relationship of the entities.” Examples include drugstore chain Walgreens buying Omnicare, which provides services to long-term care facilities, or Rite Aid buying EnvisionRx. In such deals, cost savings for employers likely would be “incremental,” and employers should talk with their PBM about the possibility of a better deal, Mr. Zimmerman said. For…

Why is this document important?  Healthcare marketers are aggressively pursuing new revenue streams to augment lower reimbursements provided under PPACA. Prescription drugs, particularly specialty, are key drivers in the growth strategies of PBMs, TPAs and MCOs pursuant to healthcare reform.  The costs shared below are what our pharmacy actually pays; not AWP, MAC or WAC. The bottom line; payers must have access to "reference pricing." Apply this knowledge to hold PBMs accountable and lower plan expenditures for stakeholders. How to Determine if Your Company [or Client] is Overpaying Step #1:  Obtain a price list for generic prescription drugs from your broker, TPA, ASO or PBM every month. Step #2:  In addition, request an electronic copy of all your prescription transactions (claims) for the billing cycle which coincides with the date of your price list. Step #3:  Compare approximately 10 to 20 prescription claims against the price list to confirm contract agreement.  It's impractical to verify all claims, but 10 is a sample size large enough to extract some good assumptions. Step #4:  Now take it one step further. Check what your organization has paid, for prescription drugs, against our pharmacy cost then determine if a problem exists. When there is a 5% or more price differential (paid versus actual cost) we consider this a problem. Multiple price differential discoveries means that your organization or client is likely overpaying. REPEAT these steps once per month. -- Tip -- Always include a semi-annual market check in your PBM contract language. Market checks provide each payer the ability, during the contract, to determine if better pricing is available in the marketplace compared to what the client is currently receiving. When better pricing is discovered the contract language should stipulate the client be indemnified. Do not allow the PBM to limit the market check language to a similar size client, benefit design and/or drug utilization. In this case, the market check language is effectually meaningless.