Pharmacy Benefit Management

The nation's leading consumer advocacy groups are voicing their disappointment this morning that the Commission has approved the merger of two of the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, Express Scripts Inc. and Medco Health Solutions.

Pharmacy benefit management (PBMs) is the one industry in America to have met the three-fold challenge posed by a generation of policymakers and consumer advocates: to simultaneously reduce costs, expand access, and improve the quality of health benefits for the 215 million Americans with prescription drug coverage.

Washington, D.C. - The Preserve Community Pharmacy Access NOW! (PCPAN) coalition today thanked Congressman Lou Barletta (PA-11) for sending a letter to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) urging the commissioner to oppose the proposed merger between Express Scripts, Inc. (ESI) and Medco Health Solutions, two pharmacy benefit management (PBM) companies.

Medication non-compliance is commonly used in regard to a patient who does not take a prescribed medication or follow a prescribed course of treatment. It is costs 125,000 lives every year and losses of $100B across entire health care systems, employers and numerous health related

One of the more popular sessions at the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy 24th Annual Meeting on April 26 featured Paul Frostin, PhD, Director, Health Research and Education Program, Employee Benefit Research Institute. Frostin’s presentation, “Essential Benefits and Exchanges Update for Managed Care Pharmacy,” identified

McKesson Corporation has agreed to pay the United States more than $190 million to resolve claims that it violated the False Claims Act by reporting inflated pricing information for a large number of prescription drugs, causing Medicaid to overpay for those drugs.

In recent months, Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) have emerged as vocal critics of the drug industry's reliance on copay cards, coupons, and other tools to help patients offset the cost of innovative brand-name medicines.

A white paper from Elsevier

The President and some members of Congress have proposed requiring that prescription drug manufacturers pay rebates to the federal government for drugs dispensed to Medicaid/Medicare dual-eligible beneficiaries and other low-income seniors through the Medicare Part D program.