FTC plans inquiry into pharmacy benefit manager practices
The Federal Trade Commission is beginning an inquiry into the operations of pharmacy benefit managers who management entry to prescribed drugs for tens of millions of Americans.
The client safety company stated Tuesday that that it’ll order the nation’s largest PBMs to offer a variety of knowledge and data detailing how they do business.
Pharmacy benefit managers run prescription drug protection for large purchasers that embody well being insurers and employers that present protection. They assist resolve which medication make a plan’s formulary, or checklist of coated drugs. They can also decide the place sufferers go to fill their prescriptions.
These companies, the most important of that are run by corporations that additionally function well being insurers, have been criticized by docs and sufferers over their formularies and different issues about drug entry.
FTC Chair Lina M. Khan stated in a press release that PBMs have “enormous influence” over the nation’s prescription drug system.
“This study will shine a light on these companies’ practices and their impact on pharmacies, payers, doctors, and patients,” Khan stated.
The FTC stated it is going to search to study extra from PBMs about drug producer rebates and the way they have an effect on formulary design and the price of medication.
The company stated it additionally will take a look at “complicated and opaque methods to determine pharmacy reimbursement” and the way sufferers are steered towards PBM-owned pharmacies.
The company will search info from OptumRX, which is a part of UnitedHealth Group; CVS Health’s Caremark business and the insurer Humana, amongst different corporations.
A CVS Health spokesman stated the company was wanting ahead “to working cooperatively with the Federal Trade Commission.”
The federal company stated the FTC Act authorizes it to conduct research and not using a particular regulation enforcement goal, and the businesses can have 90 days from the date they obtain an order to reply.
