Generating more than $400 billion annually, the PBM industry offers a valuable service, providing pharmacy benefits to nearly 250 million Americans. Unfortunately, very few people outside of the industry fully understand how much money PBMs keep for themselves after the bills are paid.  

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PBM clients include, but are not limited to, commercial and public sector employers, unions, health plans and health systems just to name a few. All of the different PBM business models will profess how much money they can help plan sponsors save or that they are the most effective at improving your pharmacy benefit plan. However, very few of them share how much revenue they retain. Neither do they disclose their management fees. 

Only two PBM business models will share their management fee – fiduciary or radically transparent PBM models. I mean, who are we kidding? Traditional, pass-through, and transparent PBM business models are for the most part the same. Do any of them reveal how much money they are being paid for their services? Think about this for a second. Contracts between pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers and pharmacies are pretty much set in stone. Unless a PBM significantly outperforms its contract, the terms between the PBM and manufacturer or pharmacy network will not change until the contract ends. 

“The PBM’s Management Fee is the #1 metric in evaluating proposals and getting to the lowest net cost during an RFP.” 

PBM Management Fee = AF (Administrative Fees) + DF (Dispensing Fees) + IC (Ingredient Costs) + MR (Manufacturer Revenue) – CD (Cash Disbursements)

For a PBM to outperform a contract with a pharmaceutical manufacturer, would require a significant change in market share, for example. Given this reality, what health plan sponsors are really negotiating for during renewal is what part of the discounts a PBM has secured you will allow that same PBM to keep. The part a PBM retains is its management fee.

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The Mississippi Division of Medicaid confirmed the probe to the Daily Journal on Monday. Medicaid officials said the attorney general’s office hired outside attorneys to “investigate and potentially pursue claims” that include Centene’s management of pharmacy benefits.

Tyrone’s Commentary:

States have pivoted from evaluating PBM performance on discount guarantees and rebates to the PBM’s management fee. EACD or the PBM management fee is the amount of money a PBM is being paid to provide its services. It is only after you know how much money a PBM is taking home that you begin to realize the magnitude of overpayments. Running an efficient pharmacy benefits program requires sophistication, bravery and steadfastness.

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In my business, I’ve always recommended a continuous monitoring process. Continuous Monitoring or CM would have identified Ohio’s and Mississippi’s problems before they got out of hand. This of course assumes you have the right advisor working on your behalf. Most don’t know the difference between a ZBD claim and a clawback. But I digress. Audits occur 12 – 24 months after the fact which is too late to recoup the majority of overpayments. Continuous Monitoring on the other hand, catches and resolves overpayments or other issues much faster. Even with the full power of the AGs office, I’d be surprised if the plaintiffs win.

The investigation is in the early stages but is similar to a recently-announced Ohio lawsuit against Centene, said Colby Jordan, a spokeswoman for Attorney General Lynn Fitch. In that case, authorities allege Centene overcharged Ohio taxpayers by millions of dollars.

The Ohio suit, according to Yost, alleges three areas of wrongdoing: requesting reimbursements for amounts already paid by the state, failing to disclose the true cost of pharmacy services, and artificially inflating drug dispensing fees. Yost’s office suggested that Centene’s practice of subcontracting with more than one firm to provide pharmacy benefits had raised red flags.

In Mississippi, Magnolia Health uses at least two companies – Envolve Pharmacy Solutions and RxAdvance – to get drugs to Medicaid recipients, according to a 2019 Centene news release.

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