PCMA: Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) Tools Key to Stretching Medicare Drug-Benefit Dollars
If Used Potential, Mail-Service Pharmacies Alone Could Save Medicare $86 Billion on Prescription Drug Costs Over Next Decade
(Washington, DC)—As discussions continue about how best to fund promises already made to America’s seniors and disabled Ă¢?? including the new Medicare prescription drug benefit Ă¢?? and to fulfill new obligations, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) today reminded policymakers that fully utilizing pharmacy benefit management tools from the commercial marketplace is likely to save billions of dollars on the cost of the Medicare prescription drug benefit over the next decade, the association said today. PCMA is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and specialty pharmacy providers (SPPs).
“As policymakers continue to look for ways to keep promises already made to seniors and to fund new challenges, it is important that they recognize that fully utilizing pharmacy benefit management tools from the commercial marketplace can help Medicare save billions of dollars over the next decade on prescription drug costs,” said PCMA President Mark Merritt. “Fully leveraging just one PBM tool from the commercial marketplace Ă¢?? the mail-service pharmacy option Ă¢?? alone would save Medicare $86 billion on prescription drug costs over the next decade.”
According to an August 2005 report commissioned by PCMA and conducted by the Lewin Group, mail-service pharmacies provide savings of 10 percent compared to retail pharmacies based on a review of the published evidence. At its current level of market penetration, mail-service pharmacy will save the health care system $78.9 billion in drug expenditures from 2006-2015. This includes $44.3 billion for Medicare and $34.6 billion for the commercial sector. According to Lewin, Medicare could see savings of as much as $86 billion over the next decade if it fully embraced the mail-service pharmacy option for beneficiaries. The complete Lewin study, “Mail-Service Pharmacy Savings: A Ten-Year Outlook for Public and Private Healthcare Purchasers,” is available on PCMA’s website at www.pcmanet.org.
# # #
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) is the national trade association representing America’s pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs). PCMA member companies provide pharmaceutical care management services to more than 200 million Americans.
Contact Information:
Phil Blando
202-207-3614