Genex acquires Prium…

Good move by Genex, as Prium’s portfolio of services including physician review and pharmacy management ties in well to Genex’ current offerings. I’m a big fan of Prium CEO Michael Gavin – he’s one of the most thoughtful, intelligent, and measured people in our business…good news is he’s sticking around.

Kentucky’s making big progress on opioids

Thanks to WCRI’s Vennela Thumula PharmD for her study on how new legislation (HB-1) helped to reduce the number of new work comp patients receiving opioids.

The legislation required prescribers to check the Prescription Drug Monitoring database prior to prescribing opioids, limited opioid prescriptions, and implemented mandatory educational and patient treatment practices.

Key Takeaways

HB-1 immediately reduced opioids prescribed to patients in the first 12 months after the date of injury.

Both the percentage of patients receiving opioids and the amount of opioids decreased by more than 15 percentage points.

Major surgical patients weren’t significantly affected by HB-1; not much change in prescribing to these folks.

Patients with back sprains and similar diagnoses had far fewer opioid scripts.

Thanks to Andrew Kenneally, Communications Director of WCRI, for the head’s up…

Opioid marketing practices

Kudos to Sen Claire McCaskill, D MO, for publicizing opioid manufacturer Insys’ alleged efforts to get approval for fentanyl product Subsys through misrepresentation. McCaskill’s report included an:

audio recording of conversations between an Insys employee and pharmacy benefit manager representatives related to a Subsys prescription for Sarah Fuller, who later died from an alleged fentanyl overdose. This recording suggests the Insys employee in question repeatedly misled Envision Pharmaceutical Services to obtain approval for Ms. Fuller’s Subsys treatment—heavily implying she was employed by the prescribing physician and misrepresenting the type of pain the patient was experiencing.

Sarah Fuller

This follows other reports of Subsys’ unethical and potentially illegal marketing practices, where other Subsys reps said they called payers, saying they were from doctors’ offices and were seeking approval for the drug.

Hell is too cold for these people. 

Finally, a very revealing piece in HealthAffairs provides more insight into just how powerful big healthplans are:

insurers with market shares of 15 percent or more (average: 24.5 percent)…negotiated prices for office visits that were 21 percent lower than prices negotiated by insurers with shares of less than 5 percent.

Differences in providers’ and insurers’ bargaining power are a major contributor to variation in commercial health care prices

Workers’ comp folks – you’re lucky if a generalist work comp PPO’s market share at a practice is 3 percent…

Back out onto the campaign trail!

In the fourteen years I’ve been surveying work comp payers on their views on pharmacy, I’ve never seen so little consensus among respondents on emerging issues.

In past years compounds, physician dispensing, opioids, price inflation, and new drug introductions have all been named by at least a plurality of respondents. Not so this year.

Here are some of the 24 respondents’ concerns:

legalization of marijuana – lots of talk about it but concern is what do you do about it, how do you handle it, pay for it, authorize it, etc. so many unknowns and little understanding

state regulations and how to bring information on those changed regulations and how to operate under the new regs back to adjusters and case managers at the desk level and to PBMs

I’m concerned we’ll see branded topicals increasing over the next few years despite a lack of efficacy and inflated prices. teracyn, speedgel, etc aren’t useful

advent of all new formularies, no one has grappled with legacy claims in that environment, thinking is formularies will get docs to taper it off – docs who prescribe all this don’t know how to taper, so finding the right docs and facilities is a real issue for legacy claims

acquisition of comp pbms and consolidation of the work comp PBM industry

Physician Dispensed Drugs and non-controlled home delivery – not just cost but formulary and safety and quality of care

what interventions can they do to to affect drug pricing, especially some of the drugs that have minimal alternatives

more problematic than opioids is the combination of benzodiazepines and sleep aids

watching very closely Evzio, naloxone prescribing practices as part of CDC

still a soft market so anything you can do to reduce costs is important

While payers are seeing good success in reducing opioid utilization and total drug spend, there are a host of troubling issues out there.

Here’s why this is a big issue.

Payers are all too used to getting screwed by unethical and very creative profiteers intent on sucking money away from employers and taxpayers by exploiting loopholes. Branded topicals, “independent” mail order pharmacies and novel drugs are all great examples of these tactics, often hidden under and supported by claims that these promote healing and health despite a total lack of supporting evidence.

In past years when doctor dispensing, the opioid crisis, or compounds were top-of-mind for most respondents, the industry joined together to come up with solutions. That obviously isn’t the case today, leaving patients exposed to crappy providers interested only in profits coming up with myriad ways to game the system.

What does this mean for you?

It’s not the one big problem that’ll get you, it’s the many small ones you may not even notice.

Finishing up the Annual Survey of Prescription Drug Management in Workers’ Comp this week (I hope!).  24 payers responded this year – TPAs, Insurers, State funds, and very large employers. Each provided specific data about their pharmacy programs, data which provides remarkable insights into what’s really going on.

Something jumped out at me that I had to get out immediately…

Two big takeaways – drug spend dropped by almost 10 percent…

while opioid spend decreased even more – almost 14 percent.

Wrap your head around that.

Work comp PBMs and payers succeeded in eliminating one of every seven dollars spent on opioids; yes, overall drug spend was down a full 10 percent, driven in large part by lower utilization of opioids.

When opioids are eliminated, the drugs needed to counteract their awful side effects – everything from constipation to sexual dysfunction to gastrointestinal distress to depression – are reduced as well.

The programs, processes, analytical resources, clinical staff, research, and patient outreach that’s driven this stunning result are largely PBM-delivered (with some notable exceptions).  These services are clearly improving the quality of care delivered to work comp patients, while reducing costs for employers and taxpayers.

A shipload of opioids has been taken out of circulation, eliminating the possibility of diversion, misuse, or abuse.

What does this mean for you?

Healthier patients, lower costs, reduced disability. 

 

A few items of interest from around the work comp world…then a brief discussion of what works, and what doesn’t, in driving innovation.

Brian Allen’s now with Mitchell International’s ScriptAdvisor PBM operation.  A highly experienced government affairs professional, Brian’s been in the business for longer than he might admit.  Good pickup by Mitchell, which has rapidly grown its work comp pharmacy business and is likely the third largest PBM.

The fine folks at BWC Ohio have done exemplary work reducing overuse of opioids. Under the leadership of John Hanna MBA, RPh, over the last five years, BWC saw:

• 44% fewer patients were taking opioids,
• 48% lower opioid consumptiomn overall,
• a prior authorization turnaround time of 4 hours (!) down from 2.5 days,
• overall drug costs were down 7.7% year over year,

John and his folks have saved countless lives, prevented untold misery, significantly reduced employers’ and taxpayers costs, and done it all at a governmental organization. Yes, they have some significant advantages, but so do you.

John’s retiring this fall, but I fully expect BWC to continue to make progress as Nick Trego PharmD takes the reins…

And yes, I do have a man-crush on John.  I have huge respect for him. Thanks WorkCompCentral for the tip.

Innovation CAN happen in insurance – here’s a quick case study of one company’s pursuit of improvement via incremental, evolutionary, and disruptive innovation. 

Here’s the summary – but you really should read this.

Creating a culture of innovation is about much more than hiring a Chief Innovation Officer or creating a new department.  Culture change takes time and significant effort, and shifting culture toward innovation is no different. The process may start at the top, but it’s fundamentally about getting all employees involved.

But bureaucracy can frustrate innovation…

Also from Harvard Business Review, a piece on how bureaucracy screws up business and results and frustrates people.

(respondents) reported spending an average of 28% of their time—more than one day a week—on bureaucratic chores such as preparing reports, attending meetings, complying with internal requests, securing sign-offs and interacting with staff functions.  Moreover, a significant portion of that work seems to be creating little or no value.

But here’s the key takeaway – “Only 20% of respondents said that unconventional ideas were greeted with interest or enthusiasm in their organization. Eighty percent said new ideas were likely to encounter indifference, skepticism, or outright resistance.”