Prescription Drugs - Medicine & Money
The truth about prescription drug costs.
Employers
- Employers and PBMs
- 10 Questions You Should Be Asking
- True Transparency
- Yet Another Consultant
- Big Business Clout
[click here]Another Layer of Business Consultants
Just when it seems there’s no other way to suck money out of employers and patients, along comes another type of consultant: This one advises employers on which pharmacy benefit manager to hire.
How do these consultants make their money? From both the employer and the Pharmacy Benefit Manager. According to The Wall Street Journal, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, which represents more than 500,000 workers, hired a consultant to pick a pharmacy benefit manager. The consultant wound up getting paid 25 cents per prescription by Medco Health Solutions Inc., one of the big three companies in the pharmacy benefit manager field.
Caremark Rx Inc. is the pharmacy benefit manager chosen by one employer after the consultant put out bids saying the winning pharmacy benefit manager should pay the consultant 45 cents per prescription.
One of the employers using the pharmacy benefit manager consultant justified the expense by saying he needed someone to monitor the pharmacy benefit manager to make sure the pharmacy benefit manager was working hard to save the employer money.
So who’s watching the consultant who’s watching the pharmacy benefit manager?