Cutting Out the Middleman

In the war on drug prices, the middleman is in everyone ’s sights.Announcing his American Patients First blueprint earlier this year, President Trump said one of his “greatest priorities” was to reduce the price of prescription drugs. He added that a key element in delivering this ambition was “very much eliminating” the middlemen.“The middlemen became very, very rich. Whoever those middlemen were – and a lot of people never even figured it out – they’re rich. They won’t be so rich anymore,” he said.While neither the president nor the blueprint itself actually named these middlemen, it would be hard to remove Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) from the list of suspects, especially when Mr Trump said that the stated goal of his plan was to “end the dishonest double-dealing that allows the middleman to pocket rebates and discounts that should be passed on to consumers and patients.”Yet, PBMs are no stranger to criticism. Surveys show employers are discontented with the current state of pharmacy benefit management, says David Dross, National Practice Leader, Managed Pharmacy Practice, at Mercer.“They don’t like the structure and there’s not enough transparency so it’s not clear how drug prices are derived. There have been all sorts of bizarre situations, where someone can go into a pharmacy and pay cash for a prescription substantially cheaper than going through their plan, which m akes no sense,” he says.However, the lack of transparency may no...

Source: EyeForPharma - December 7, 2018 Category: Pharmaceuticals Authors: Hugh Gosling Source Type: news