Federal Employees’ Health Benefits: Effects of Using Pharmacy Benefit Managers on Health Plans, Enrollees, and Pharmacies
General Accounting Office, (January 2003)
A 2003 U.S. General Accounting Office study evaluated the impact PBMs had on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). The study found that prescription drug costs decreased substantially as a result of increased PBM utilization. PBMs are shown to have generated an average price savings of 18% overall when comparing the prices of 14 brand name drug with and without PBM negotiations. The average prescription cost fell between 27% and 53% when it was filled through mail order. PBMs were also able to reduce prices by passing on rebates to the plans they cover, which resulted in annual savings of between 3% and 9% from 1998 to 2001.
Reports and White Papers
- An Overview of Pharmacy Benefit Managers: Focus on the Consumer →
Edward C. Lawrence, PhD, Jane QingJiang Qu, MBA, MA, and Ellen N. Briskin, PhD, 2012
- “Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System” →
Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s Report to the Congress, 2012
News Articles
- “PBMs save us billions of dollars” →
Jonathan Orszag, Senior Managing Director at Compass Lexecon, LLC, The Hill, 2011
- Medicare Part D successful; no need for changes →
Bill Bro, President of the Kidney Cancer Association of Illinois, Rockford Register News, 2011
- Lower Your Prescription-Drug Costs →
Kimberly Lankford, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, 2010
- High Prices: How to think about prescription drugs. →
Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, 2004