UCare: Transparent Model Was ‘Table Stakes’ When Picking New PBM
In what is only the latest sign that PBM clients are growing increasingly disillusioned with the status quo, Minnesota-based insurer UCare recently chose Navitus Health Solutions, LLC as its new PBM partner — ending a relationship with The Cigna Group’s Express Scripts that had been in place since 2010.
“I think that there is a growing desire amongst employer groups and health plans to look at alternative options besides what we consider to be the big PBMs,” Patrick Mitsch, vice president of pharmacy at UCare, tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT. “There’s different value propositions that a PBM like Navitus can bring to the market that the Big Three just can’t,” he adds, referring to Express Scripts, CVS Health Group’s Caremark, and UnitedHealth Group’s Optum Rx, which control roughly 80% of the pharmacy benefits market.