My post of a couple weeks ago on Third Party Billers (TPBs) generated a good bit of heat and even some light amongst interested readers. It has also caused a few payers to examine their own reimbursement policies in some detail. Caution – Most regular visitors will find this a touch too esoteric, but for interested parties nothing could be more intriguing.
Reminder – TPBs are “factors”; companies that buy workers comp scripts from retail pharmacies and try to collect from payers such as insurance companies. Seems pretty straightforward – pay a discounted price, the pharmacy gets their money quickly and then the TPB makes money on the margin between what they pay and what they collect. There are a few nuances and twists that make this a lot more complicated, and therefore a lot more frustrating for payers.
In about half the states, there is a fee schedule mandated by the state government which sets the maximum reimbursement amount for most drugs. Thus, when TPBs request reimbursement from payers, they ask for the fee schedule amount. So far, so good.
Except when the pharmacy is in the payer’s Pharmacy Benefit Management vendor’s network of contracted pharmacies. In this instance, some payers and payers/PBMs have reduced the amount payable to that owed under the terms of the contract rate at the dispensing pharmacy. TPBs do not approve of this interpretation, and in some instances have aggressively pursued additional payments.
A different situation arises in the non-fee schedule states. Most of these require reimbursement to be at “usual and customary”, which is defined by the NCPDP (standard field 426-DQ) as the “amount charged cash customers for the prescription exclusive of sales tax or other amounts claimed”. It appears that this definition is not used by the TPBs, who are actually billing at rates that appear to be based on a multiple of the Average Wholesale Price, or AWP. (Various sources within payer organizations have indicated that the multiple is in the range of AWP + 15% to AWP + 20%.).
Some payers pay the requested amount while others pay the bills at what they deem to be “U&C”. In some instances TPBs have threatened to initiate legal action against payers failing to pay what the TPBs have stated they are owed.
The net is this – there appears to be a disagreement as to what constitutes “usual and customary”. After reviewing research on drug fee schedules and reimbursement arrangements in the individual states, there does not appear to be a consistent, clear definition of usual and customary.
There have been some court cases that at least part involved this issue; to my knowledge there have not been any precedents set or definitive rulings written. If any reader is aware of more conclusive information please let me know.
What does this mean for you?
Confusion and different interpretations are never helpful and can lead to excess costs and hassles for all involved. The sooner this is publicly resolved the better for all parties.
Note to reader – I contacted executives at third party billers in an effort to get their perspective on this issue; none have returned my calls as of this morning. This despite the request from one (Third Party Solutions) in a comment on a previous post that I contact them to get their input.

A suit has been filed by Arizona’s Attorney General accusing 42 drug manufacturers of inflating Average Wholesale Prices on drugs sold to physicians. According to an article in the Arizona Republic, at least 14 other states are also pursuing action against foreign and domestic pharmaceutical firms.
The pharmas are accused of artificially inflating the AWP reported to payers and data aggregators, setting prices that are many times higher than what they “actually charge some doctors and pharmacies.” As Medicare, Medicaid, group health plans, and group health and workers comp pharmacy benefit managers often base their reimbursement on AWP, the effect of the alleged price inflation is to generate enormous profits for the retailers and physicians paying the real wholesale prices.
In one example, the Republic noted:
“Abbott Laboratories Inc. lists a price of $382.14 for a 1-gram vial of the antibiotic vancomycin, which is used for severe infections. But the providers, the doctors and pharmacies, are charged only $4.98 for the drug, leaving a profit of $377.16, or 7,547 percent. Some drug firms sell the salt solution sodium chloride to pharmacies and physicians for about $4, with the average wholesale price listed at about $670.
The complaint also says that drug manufacturers provide financial incentives to physicians and suppliers to stimulate drug sales, such as volume discounts, rebates and free goods, at the expense of Medicaid and Medicare. The incentives were not offered to government or consumers.”
AWP is universally derided as “Ain’t What’s Paid”, and this is yet more proof that the pejorative definition of the acronym is more realistic than the industry definition. Transparency is a critical issue in the industry, and this shows why.
Not mentioned in the article is the growing trend in dispensing of drugs by physicians for workers comp patients in many states, particularly California. According to some of our clients, almost half of all drugs dispensed to WC claimants are through physician offices. I’ll comment in depth about this in a future post.
What does this mean for you?
Yet more evidence that the “discount” is meaningless. Too many payers assess their program based not on total drug costs but on the discount received. This is proof that the system is ripe for manipulation.
If you aren’t measuring your drug costs based on total expenditures, you are not doing your job.

I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with an executive at a large workers compensation third party biller. For those unaware, third party billers (TPBs) are entities that buy WC scripts from retail pharmacies and then try to collect from the insurance companies. Think of them as factoring agents; the retail pharmacy gets their cash fast, and the TPB gets to make a margin on the difference between what they pay the retail pharmacy and what the insurer pays the TPB.
By the end of the conversation, it was abundantly clear that the TPBs are out to take over the WC PBM (pharmacy benefit management) business. This TPB claims to have spent several years trying to collect what they believe they are owed from numerous payers, wtih very limited success. As a result, they are now pursuing aggressive legal action to try to force the payers to pay them the full amount for each script.
Many payers have been reducing their reimbursement to the TPB based on the rate that the retail pharmacy has agreed to. The TPB claims that since they bought the script, they now own it, and therefore the payer has to reimburse them at fee schedule.
The payers believe that since the script was filled by a retail pharmacy that is in their pharmacy network, they only have to pay the contracted amount.
Woven throughout the conversation was the statement that the TPBs exist to improve the injured workers’ life; by getting access to the drugs, they are helping to speed healing and reduce lost work time. A noble goal to be sure.
What does this mean for you?
The PBM-payer-TPB mix is going to have a huge impact on WC medical expenses, systems, and workflows.