Canadian benefits plan sponsors are becoming more involved in assessing their drug plan designs. This has been a positive step forward in terms of helping to ensure long-term plan sustainability and affording plan sponsors the ability to reinvest unnecessary spending in areas that will produce far greater return. By contrast, one area in which plan […]
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) will save U.S. consumers and payers almost $2 trillion in prescription drug costs—a 35% savings—over the next decade, according to new research from Visante, a consulting firm. The research also indicates that another $550 billion could be saved if payers used the full array of savings tools that PBMs offer. “PBMs […]
More than 100 people attended the 11th annual Solutions in Drug Plan Management conference presented by Drugstore Canada and Benefits Canada yesterday in Toronto. Pharmacists, plan sponsors, consultants and recordkeepers came together to discuss the theme for this year’s conference: Opportunities in a New Healthcare Landscape. Peter Zawadzki, a professional affairs executive with Pharmasave National, […]
One of the biggest potential upsides to containing costs through an optimally designed plan is that plan sponsors then have the budget to ensure better health for their members. Let’s consider the case of a common source of absenteeism, short-term disability and long-term disability in the workplace: depression. What’s frightening is how common both mild […]
Traditional approaches to drug plans need to be revisited, but the industry needs to move toward a properly designed flexible benefits program that fosters better understanding among members, according to Morneau Shepell’s recent News & Views. While rate of drug cost increases has been slowing recently, the company says new drugs coming on the market […]
From the state of the economy to the implementation of drug reform legislation and prolific genericization of branded products, there has been much speculation about the impact that biologic drugs will have on private plans. Less than five years ago, most of this discussion took place in the future tense. Long development times in the […]
There have been significant changes in the landscape of public sector drug plans over the past five years. Faced with rapidly escalating costs, provinces have begun leveraging their purchasing power and law-making ability to impose a measure of restraint on their drug systems. The Ontario government in particular has demonstrated that these measures can result […]
The prices of many of the world’s most popular prescription medications are set to decrease over the next year and beyond, as patent expiries open the door to generic equivalents. According to the Associated Press (AP), seven of the top 20 best-selling drugs are set to lose patent protection over the next 14 months, including […]
Over the last few years, an increasing number of new medications have been introduced to treat a range of complex diseases. While many of these treatments have proven effective, they also come at high costs—costs that private supplementary health insurance plans are struggling to cover. A recent example is the newly marketed drug Soliris, which […]
I followed my father’s footsteps into the pharmacy industry. When he first started practising pharmacy it was common place to smoke behind the dispensary counter, prescription labels were carefully crafted using a typewriter, the arsenal of medications was a fraction of the size that it is today, and most importantly, pharmacists weren’t allowed to tell […]