1. Health Strategies Group
Key Finding #2
2/28/2019
Health Strategies Group
Author/Artist
Payers Will Decrease Reliance on PBMs If They Fail To Improve their Services by Developing Specific Capabilities
If PBMs remain incapable of offering satisfactory services and specific capabilities important to clients, the majority of health plans and employers anticipate developing these capabilities either internally or contracting for services externally.
There’s so little transparency, and customer service is ghastly—so much so that we fired one of our PBMs a couple years ago because of it. Obviously, service is an issue, but so is information, best price, strategies for more narrow formularies, reporting, rebates and contracts. I work with our PBM, and I also work with a number of carve-out vendors, so I’m constantly working to jointly strategize better pharmacy management. And sadly, we haven’t done that. I don’t think that any one of them is doing any better than the other, unfortunately. – Medical Director, Blues Plan