BenefitsEmployee Engagement

Outsourcing Specialty Pharmacy Benefits

Case Study: Pharmacy benefit management can be the perfect prescription for improved benefits services.

by Jake Murdock

Like many health plans, Deseret Mutual has been facing increasing challenges presented by dramatic rises in the use and cost of specialty drugs. Several years ago, we realized the need for an improved system of managing specialty pharmacy benefits to better control costs and provide a higher level of clinical care support for members who use specialty medications. In choosing a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) as our specialty drug provider, we found a partner whose experience and capabilities are helping us achieve that goal.

When we began developing our specialty pharmacy strategy, Medco Health Solutions offered consultative support that helped us understand the current state of Deseret Mutuals specialty pharmacy spending and utilization among our plan members. Historically, Medco managed all of Deseret Mutuals pharmacy benefits. When we asked them to look into specialty pharmacy benefits, they were able to provide an analysis of specialty pharmacy spending across our pharmacy and medical plans to give us an increased understanding of the specialty pharmacy challenge. We created a comprehensive plan to align coverage of specialty medications across Deseret Mutuals medical and pharmacy benefits and to provide new services through Medcos Special Care Pharmacy program.

The extraordinary expense of specialty drugs makes proper management essential to ensure that patients who need these treatments receive them, while having systems in place to prevent potential underuse, overuse, and waste of these medications. By selecting a PBM with vast experience in utilization management, Deseret Mutual was able to ensure that the same tools used to control utilization of traditional pharmaceutical products would also apply to managing specialty drugs. This includes prior authorization, step therapy, and product selection strategies. By working withour PBM, Deseret Mutual is better able to identify those members that will truly benefit from specialty therapies and those that may benefit from a more cost-effective therapy.

Deseret Mutual realized significant savings by requiring that select specialty drugs be dispensed through the PBMs specialty pharmacy. By doing so, we have been able to bring consistency to the pricing and utilization management of specialty drugs under the pharmacy benefit without compromising the services and quality of care available to members.

Controlling costs is a major concern, but equally important to Deseret Mutual is a specialty pharmacy that can provide the most comprehensive clinical care for our members. Medco offers the advantage of being able to look across a patients entire prescription drug profile and find out if traditional or specialty drugs are being used. This is particularly important for specialty patients, who are often also prescribed traditional medications for conditions associated with a disease that requires specialty treatment.

There are additional advantages to having all our pharmacy services provided under one roof. Through Medco, we are able to offer a coordinated approach to managing all of a members pharmacy needs. Having a single point of contact makes the system much more streamlined and less complicated for both physicians and patients. Physicians can order both specialty and traditional medications from the same source, and, at the same time, obtain comprehensive patient prescription information while qualifying the member for coverage under prior authorization. This coordinated system also improves patient careour PBMs specialty pharmacists and nurses work closely with Deseret Mutuals case managers to coordinate patient support services.

Administration for all out pharmacy benefits is also simplified by working with a single point of contact. When using stand-alone specialty pharmacies, plans must often manage multiple specialty pharmacies in order to provide members access to the wide array of specialty products in the market today. Many of these niche specialty pharmacies focus only on a limited number of conditions or products. However, our PBM gives us access to the services and drugs needed to provide our members with a comprehensive specialty drug benefit plancreating a much more efficient system that has helped us reduce administrative time and costs associated with specialty benefits.

Deseret Mutuals experience shows that by working with a PBM that offers specialty benefit management services, we can provide members using specialty medications with high-quality care in a cost effective manner.

Tags: Benefits, Employee Engagement

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