Biologics and specialty pharmacy health care survey: Implications for P&T committees

摘要

Health care costs have remained a continuing concern among employers and other purchasers of insurance. This problem extends particularly to biologics (i.e., specialty products) that are being subjected to increasing scrutiny in terms of their ability to demonstrate value over time. Since the discovery of biologics in the early 1980s and the growth of their impact, attention has shifted from medical expenditures alone to pharmaceutical expenditures. Seeking to help employers better understand how biologies support at-risk populations and to show them how to contract with health care vendors more effectively, the Midwest Business Group on Health (MBGH), a not-for-profit coalition of more than 100 large employers, identified the need to focus on biologies and specialty pharmacy as a top priority. To this end, MBGH began the first phase of a multiyear effort to help employers address this expensive, complex benefit. In the summer of 2011, in collaboration with the Institute for Integrated Healthcare, MBGH conducted a national survey to determine how much employers knew about the management of bio-logics. MBGH also partnered with more than 15 business coalitions across the U.S. to distribute the survey to employer members.