Tis the season for drug trend reports. Recent releases from PMSI, Express Scripts (ESI), and Progressive Medical show an ever-increasing level of sophistication and growing insight into cost drivers in workers comp pharmacy. Moreover, the layout, graphics, use of charts and layout are far superior across the board.
I’d caution readers against using these reports to directly compare PBMs; mix of business/client base, average age of claim, jurisdictional market share, and other factors make direct comparison of statistical results inappropriate. For example, one PBM might have significant share of the state funds, other PBMs typically service large carriers; some may have a large book of older claims (with higher spend, more opioids, and lower generic fills) while other, newer PBMs will have fewer legacy claims.
Here are some of the highlights from each.
Industry founder PMSI has been producing reports longer than most; their latest release includes chief clinician Maria Sciame, PharmD’s video discussion of the report. It needs a bit of highlighting, as at 72 pages, it is by far the most voluminous of the studies. PMSI saw an average cost increase of 3.2% with a higher cost per script somewhat mitigated by lower utilization. (in fairness, PMSI’s book likely has a higher proportion of legacy, long-term claimants than other PBMs, again making direct comparisons inappropriate; their average claim is 4.9 years old)
Average blended prices (weighted brand and generic) were up 6.3%, driven almost entirely by an 8.3% jump in brand AWP. These increases were somewhat mitigated by PMSI’s high mail order penetration and the attendant lower customer pricing; due in part to their mix of business, 27.5% of their scripts were home delivered. Narcotic utilization per claimant also declined.
Of particular interest is the lengthy discussion of differences in drugs used by claimants as claims age. In general, costs, and the number of scripts, go up rapidly over the first six years, level off somewhat, then cost trends upwards again after ten years while the volume of scripts stays level.
ESI released their drug trends report a couple weeks back. The big news is spend – measured on a cost per user-per year basis – decreased by 1.8%, driven primarily by a drop in utilization. Notably, narcotic spend decreased 3.6%, influenced by a 6.2 percent decline in OxyContin(r) spend. Overall costs could have dropped further if claimants had taken full advantage of home delivery/mail order, maximized generic substitution, eliminated physician dispensing, and used in-network pharmacies.
Express focused their report on opportunities for payers to reduce costs by addressing unnecessary spend, or waste. Their estimates indicate payers could reduce costs by some $2.1 billion by eliminating “waste”. While most of this reduction would come from greater use of generics, ESI also noted a significant increase in the cost of compounds; over the last four years costs have more than doubled. Substituting commercially-available alternatives for compounds would save hundreds of dollars per script…
Progressive Medical reported a 1.3% drop in spend per claim for 2011 as well, with narcotics down 3.9%, this despite an average increase in AWP of almost six percent on a per-claim basis. PMI’s report provided detailed explanations of legislative/regulatory changes during 2011, as well as a lengthy, and informative forecast of issues including new drug approvals, FDA activities and societal issues affecting pharmacy management. Unlike other PBMs, PMI does not see third party biller activity as an issue. This is unsurprising, as their ownership by Stone River enables PMI to apply their negotiated discounts to all bills coming thru Stone River Pharmacy (the leading third party biller).
As with other PBMs, Progressive focused on compounded medications, with their data indicating a very small (1.2%) increase in the average cost of compounds, offset by a 3.9% decline in the percentage of claimants using compounds driven by PMI’s requirement that all retail-dispensed compounds go thru a prior-authorization process.
There should be a couple more reports out shortly; when they are we’ll get them out to you as well.
Apr
26
