UHC ' s August 2022 Optum Insulin Announcement: More PR Fluff? We Don ' t Really Know.

On August 1, 2022, United Healthcare Group ' s PBM business known as Optum made a press release of its own related to insulin:Optum to Offer Lower-Cost Insulin for Uninsured People Living With Diabetes on Optum Store https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220801005282/en/Optum-to-Offer-Lower-Cost-Insulin-for-Uninsured-People-Living-With-Diabetes-on-Optum-Store/This comes on the heels of United Healthcare ' s own goodwill-generating PR move made on July 15, 2022 which was as follows:UnitedHealthcare To Eliminate Out-of-Pocket Costs on Several Prescription Drugs, Including Insulin, for Eligible Membershttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220715005174/en/UnitedHealthcare-To-Eliminate-Out-of-Pocket-Costs-on-Several-Prescription-Drugs-Including-Insulin-for-Eligible-MembersI quickly tore the United Healthcare announcement to shreds, citing the headline which said it ONLY applied to " Eligible Members " , and how healthcare insurance industry critic Wendell Potter did the math in his own article (seehttps://wendellpotter.substack.com/p/its-just-spin-unitedhealth-group for his assessment) on the United Healthcare announcement, concluding " The money 1.3% of United ' s health plan members might save in out-of-pockets on insulin and a few other medications likely won ' t amount to a rounding error for this enormous company. "Regardless, Optum ' s own, more recent goodwill gesture deserves its own assessment, so here it is.First, Optum ' s press release was deliberately vague...
Source: Scott's Web Log - Category: Endocrinology Tags: authorized generic UnitedHealthCare 2022 insulin insulin prices OptumRx PBM United Healthcare Source Type: blogs