AHIP Panelists: Accelerated Approval, IRA Uncertainty Worry Health Plans

March 14

For health plans, managing prescription drug coverage has become a highly complex task for myriad reasons, including never-ending regulatory changes and ever-rising prices. And that task is made even more difficult by the fact that an increasing number of drugs are coming to market with limited evidence that they are effective, panelists said during a March 13 session of the AHIP Medicare, Medicaid, Duals & Commercial Markets Forum in Baltimore.

“One of the challenges for insurers going forward will be the increasing need to manage uncertainty,” said Daniel Ollendorf, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER). Many drug launch prices, he said, “are being driven by approvals that happen on an accelerated basis with very limited evidence.”

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Radar on Drug Benefits

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.