Benefits October 21, 2003

Study: PBMs Earn Kudos By Holding Down Drug Spending

October 21, 2003 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Managing drug spending increased pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) performance ratings, according to research from the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI) an industry group.
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The 24% of employers who perceive their PBMs are helping them keep their drug expenditure increases less than the spending hikes of other companies gave their PBMs higher scores on a 10-point satisfaction rating scale, according to a news release. The nation’s PBMs captured an overall performance and satisfaction rating of 7.7, similar to employer ratings in prior years..

In addition to overall service and performance, employers rated PBMs on 14 other service functions in plan design and support, administration, network design and management, and clinical services.

Employers rated more than 50 PBMs in the survey including:

  • AdvancePCS
  • Caremark Prescription Service
  • Eckerd Health Services
  • Express Scripts Inc.
  • Medco Health Solutions Inc.
  • PharmaCare Management Services Inc.,
  • National Medical Health Card Systems Inc.
  • Systemed
  • Walgreens Health Initiatives.

For more information, go to www.pbmi.com . These findings are based on survey responses from 468 US employers with more than 2,500 employees.

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