When evaluating pharmacy benefit arrangements, employers and brokers frequently find themselves caught in a persistent dilemma. While financial terms, rebate guarantees, and baseline pricing typically dominate the initial Request for Proposal (RFP) process, the true test of any pharmacy partnership unfolds long after the ink is dry. Human resources leaders and benefits advisors often harbor…
“It’s expensive to be poor.” Have you heard the phrase, “It’s expensive to be poor”? This concept is often illustrated by a pair of boots: an individual with less money can only afford an okay pair of boots for $30, within 2 months, they need to be replaced and another $30 is spent; a pattern emerges. An…
Are you familiar with the phrase “guilty by association”? Big Pharma is at it again. They have collectively released their minions to concoct a new moniker: Alternate Funding Programs (AFPs). According to several articles found on the internet, SHARx finds itself lumped into a category that is based on a fictious representation of our business…
Prescription drugs cost 256% (now at 322%) more in the United States than the rest of the world (RAND Corporation). While shocking, this probably comes as no surprise since the U.S. has held the top spot in prescription drug spend per capita for over a decade. Consumers and employers continue to struggle to keep up…
SHARx was built on the notion that everyone deserves access to the life-saving medications they need, not just a select few. To us, that seems only logical but companies like AbbVie view it as a threat to their profits and it remains obvious that their profits are their only concern. They are the corporate equivalent…
The Cold Hard Facts According to BenefitsPRO, 93% of employers considered switching pharmacy benefit providers in the last year due to the rising cost of prescriptions and complicated PBM contracts; smaller employers are more likely to re-evaluate their pharmacy benefit plans than very large employers; and future company health plan designs greatly concern majority of…
Are You Sure About Insurance for Medications? Insurance was meant to cover the risk of unknown loss. Many Human Resource managers have implemented pharmacy insurance into their companies’ benefits because it has been engrained in them that insurance is what you do for your employees. However, in doing so, they are often creating a major…
Disruption Disruption is a good thing! To put it simply, disruption means to break the normal course or continuation of some activity, process, etc. To many, disruption alludes a negative connotation. With disruption comes change. Change is scary because it opens the door to the unknown. I am advocating to change that narrative. Change needs…
A Broken Drug Industry I’ve spoken many times about my children’s genetic condition known as Cystinosis. Having children with an illness is stressful enough, but it is made more stressful by the cost of the medication needed to treat their illness. A few years ago, the manufacturer of their medication was acquired by the company…
Talk is Cheap The pharmaceutical industry has an ethics problem, but if you listen to many of the “talking heads” for Big Pharma, they will have you believe that it is the employers, looking for solutions so they can maintain/achieve financial solvency while doing right by their employees, that are being “unethical”. Under the Insurance…