Hello to our wonderful supporters. First, thank you for your support!
There are bills sponsored that we need your help to push forward into approval. The PBM's (CVS Caremark, Optum RX, and Express Scripts) lobbyists are out full force to encourage our regulators not to give patient's their choice and not to make them act transparently.
In these states, PBMs have been reported overcharging millions in several states. We need to remind our legislators, because even with this in the open PBMs seem to have a persuasive lobbyist.
Here are a news report and a presentation about these issues:
News Report - How PBMs Keep The Cost High
How PBMs Raise the Cost of Drugs
There are at least three state bills and one national rule that could have an improved impact on pharmaceutical care. The first two would allow a patient's choice on the pharmacy that they would like to use to fill their medications. Feel free to contact the senators who will be voting on these bills:
Arkansas
Oklahoma
Nationwide Proposed Rule
CLICK HERE to comment on this proposed national rule that would require transparency of pharmacy benefit managers and that would regulate the rebate system that the PBMs have with the drug manufacturers. Rebates sound great until the PBMs keep the rebates for themselves instead of passing the rebates onto the patient. This increases the cost of drugs and is why some patients are paying a copay sometimes more than 3x what the cash price of a drug is when they have a high deductible plan.
Pharmacy benefits managers ( PBMs) such as Express Scripts, CVS Caremark, and Optum RX operate with little oversight and often persuade our politicians not to enact regulations that would increase transparency. Today, there is an urgent need to regulate both prescription drug manufacturers and PBMs to ensure proper use of our tax dollars and prioritization of patients over PBM profits.
The same company that owns pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) owns the mail-order pharmacies that they often force patients. It’s no wonder as to why many of our trusted pharmacists complain of lower reimbursements. PBMs can pay their owned pharmacy many times more than they pay an independent pharmacy.
Another PBM role is to negotiate drug prices. These negotiations act as secret deals that we now know are one of the main ways that PBMs make money as many PBMs have landed positions at the tops of the Fortune 50 list and are billion dollar companies.
Due to the lack of transparency, PBMs have been able to receive money in return from the drug manufacturers for choosing a medication onto the list of covered drugs. This money is known as rebates/kickbacks.
Sometimes, a drug that may be more expensive can end up on the formulary because it offered a larger rebate to the PBM. PBMs do not have an obligation to pass this rebate on to the patients. Therefore, we hear stories of a copay costing many times more than the out of pocket cash price at an independent pharmacy. Even if a prescription drug has a low or no copay without proper regulation, PBMs can profit from the lack of transparency when they can keep the rebate money for themselves.
Since PBMs are not being forced to pass on rebates and their deals with the prescription drug manufacturers are kept secret, taxpayers lose. When a medication is added to the formulary is a more expensive drug, patients and taxpayers can be charged more in our Medicaid and Medicare programs.
States across our nation are finding millions of dollars overcharged in individual states.
Please take 1-5 minutes to comment on this proposed rule by HHS and demand increased transparency for PBMs and stop their ability to price gouge our tax dollars and health systems through rebates.
This action must be a bipartisan issue. The future of our health care system and drug prices has been a hot topic across our nation. If drug manufacturers and PBMs remain unregulated in any health system, patients and taxpayers will pay.
Please feel free to copy and paste the following statement and feel free to change this statement to make it your own.
“I am in agreeance to increase transparency and oversight of pharmacy benefit managers by ending safe harbor rebates that encourage PBMs to benefit from a complex system of secretive bargaining that allows PBMs to pocket much of the rebate without passing the rebate to the patient or taxpayers. The current lack of regulation has shown to increase the costs of prescription medications for patients across our nation. Taxpayers, patients, and caregivers demand increased transparency and regulation of PBMs.”
Thank you for your support!
Loretta Boesing
loretta@uniteforsafemeds.com
Twitter: @BoesingLoretta
Facebook Page: Issues with Mail Order Pharmacy @justamomwholovesherson