Podcast Episode Recommendation: Our Curious Amalgam Podcast Episode 212

 My followers may be forgiven for their lack of awareness, but on October 23, 2022, the man who lead the PBM known as Express Scripts (owned by commercial healthcare insurance company Cigna since 2018) named George Paz died at relatively young age of 67. Mr. Paz began at Express Scripts in 1998 as CFO. By 2003, he was president and by 2005, CEO. Paz retired as CEO in 2016, although he remained chairman until Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in December 2018. The local newspaper, theSt. Louis Post-Dispatch published his obituaryHERE). While he was an admired business leader in St. Louis, one of the things his company became best known for was opacity and non-disclosure of what it actually did behind closed doors. That paved the way for rivals including Caremark (later CVS Health/Caremark/Aetna), and United Healthcare ' s PBM OptumRx to do the exact same thing. Collectively, the three largest PBM ' s now handle claims for some 80% of all prescription drugs sold in the U.S. today.But today ' s post isn ' t about George Paz, but the unraveling the opacity the company he led made a core business strategy. I will admit there was once a time I actually respected the role of PBM ' s. The reason is because they once did what they now claim the industry does without providing any proof, which was to save the healthcare system (and patients) money on prescription drugs. However, over time, that ceased to be a reality. I believe that the PBM industry falsely presumed ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 episode Express Scripts George Paz PBM podcast USC Source Type: blogs