pricing | Association of Health Care Journalists
Ohio Medicaid program demands new payment strategy after journalists explain how PBMs use ‘spread pricing’
Photo: afagen via Flickr
Over the past six months, journalists for the Columbus Dispatch have written more than 40 articles about the murky world of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in Ohio. This week, they wrote one of the most important stories in this ongoing series, “Ohio firing pharmacy middlemen that cost taxpayers millions.”
In this article, they explained that the Ohio Department of Medicaid was changing the way it pays for prescription drugs by, “giving the boot to all pharmacy middlemen” because the Medicaid program wants to shift away from what’s called the “spread pricing” practice. Continue reading →
This entry was posted in Insurance and tagged costs, medicaid, Ohio, PBM, pharmacy benefits manager, pricing, reimbursement on August 17, 2018 by Joseph Burns.	
People age 65 and older account for 34 percent of all prescription medication use and 30 percent of all over-the-counter drugs purchased, according to this Medscape article. Azar, a former drug company executive, recently spoke with reporters and other stakeholders to promote the plan, saying that high prescription costs seriously threaten too many Americans’ health and wellbeing. Continue reading →
President Donald Trump has spoken about the cost of drugs frequently. Though not always clearly and consistently, he has called for government negotiation of prices. Drug prices also have caught Congress’s eye, although we’re not quite sure what (if anything) legislators are willing to do about it.
But patients are fed up, as David Mitchell, founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs reminded us last week during a Health Journalism 2017 session in Orlando. Continue reading →
This entry was posted in Conference, Health care reform, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals and tagged costs, drugs, fda, medicaid, medicare, pharmaceutical, pricing on April 27, 2017 by Joanne Kenen.	