100% Focused on Market Access
Payer

Radar On Market Access: Trump’s International Drug Pricing Order Is Still Missing; Rebate Order Draws Fire

September 16, 2020

A promised executive order that would tie drug prices to their costs in other countries has yet to emerge, although President Donald Trump has promoted the order as part of his re-election campaign. Meanwhile, payers and PBMs are continuing to push back against three executive orders the Trump administration issued in July with the intention of lowering drug prices, one of which would overhaul the Medicare Part D prescription drug rebate system, AIS Health reported.

“I think the purpose of these executive orders is to give the president some talking points going into the debates,” says Avalere Health founder Dan Mendelson. He adds that, regardless of their purpose, the orders will not make a difference in the real world any time soon.

A promised executive order that would tie drug prices to their costs in other countries has yet to emerge, although President Donald Trump has promoted the order as part of his re-election campaign. Meanwhile, payers and PBMs are continuing to push back against three executive orders the Trump administration issued in July with the intention of lowering drug prices, one of which would overhaul the Medicare Part D prescription drug rebate system, AIS Health reported.

“I think the purpose of these executive orders is to give the president some talking points going into the debates,” says Avalere Health founder Dan Mendelson. He adds that, regardless of their purpose, the orders will not make a difference in the real world any time soon.

Administration officials indicated during the rollout of the executive orders on July 24 that the international pricing order would be released within 30 days of the debut of the other three drug pricing orders. Yet the deadline passed and the administration at press time had not released the promised order.

Meanwhile, the executive orders that actually have been released are being criticized from stakeholders across health care. The order that would remove safe harbor protections from the Anti-Kickback Statute for prescription drug rebates in Medicare Part D has been panned even by conservatives.

Alex Brill, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), penned a white paper sponsored by PBM trade group Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) that concluded the executive order would “restrict an important tool for providing savings to the federal government and Medicare Part D beneficiaries. Moreover, net drug costs and drug company revenues would rise significantly if the Medicare Part D safe harbor for rebates is eliminated.”

Mendelson says that the pharmaceutical industry is beginning to realize that it will have to change its business model one way or another.

“The pharmaceutical industry is facing a real pivot point where there are going to have to be more innovative ways to price for these products,” Mendelson observes. “…it’s really important that the industry start to figure out ways to engage positively with payers. And the government is the biggest payer.”

MMIT Reality Check on Acute Migraine (Sep 2020)

September 11, 2020

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for acute migraine treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for acute migraine treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT’s team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Payer Coverage: A review of market access for acute migraine treatments shows that under the pharmacy benefit, about 55% of the lives under commercial formularies are covered with utilization management restrictions.

Trends: In February 2020, the FDA approved Biohaven Pharmaceuticals’ Nurtec ODT (rimegepant) for the acute treatment of migraine in adults. The medication is the first and only calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) receptor antagonist available in a fast-acting orally disintegrating tablet, according to the company’s news release.

Trends That Matter for Large Employers in 2021

September 10, 2020

While the COVID-19 pandemic has not caused employers to significantly alter their health care cost estimates for the coming year, it has unquestionably intensified their interest in embracing virtual care. Those are just a couple of the major findings from the Business Group on Health’s 2021 Large Employers’ Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey, AIS Health reported.

Notably, 80% of respondents said they believe virtual health will play a significant role in how care is delivered in the future, up considerably from 64% last year. Further, when asked about actions they were taking to ease the burdens of COVID-19 for employees, the largest share of respondents — 76% — said they “made changes to allow for better access to virtual care solutions.”

While the COVID-19 pandemic has not caused employers to significantly alter their health care cost estimates for the coming year, it has unquestionably intensified their interest in embracing virtual care. Those are just a couple of the major findings from the Business Group on Health’s 2021 Large Employers’ Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey, AIS Health reported.

Notably, 80% of respondents said they believe virtual health will play a significant role in how care is delivered in the future, up considerably from 64% last year. Further, when asked about actions they were taking to ease the burdens of COVID-19 for employees, the largest share of respondents — 76% — said they “made changes to allow for better access to virtual care solutions.”

During an Aug. 18 press briefing, Business Group on Health President and CEO Ellen Kelsay attributed such findings to not only telehealth’s ability to offer more convenience and greater access for consumers, but also to the sheer necessity of pivoting to a different care modality amid widespread stay-at-home orders.

Regarding the controversial issue of telehealth reimbursement, which payers generally want to be lower than in-person visits but providers want to be equal, Kelsay said her organization supports payment flexibility over parity. In some cases, that “might mean less reimbursement for telehealth, and in other instances maybe increased reimbursement for telehealth if it’s a better modality for delivery, depending on the situation,” she added.

Kelsay also emphasized that there are still more questions than answers about how the pandemic will affect health care costs for companies and their workers. For 2021, the Business Group on Health is projecting the total cost of health benefits will rise by 5.3% — slightly higher than the 5% trend it predicted in the past few years.

Radar On Market Access: Amazon Moves Further Into Health Care Data, Sharp Deal Shows

September 10, 2020

Health care industry insiders say that Amazon.com Inc.’s Aug. 27 deal to provide Halo fitness trackers to Sharp HealthCare indicates the retail and tech giant will make big bets on clinical and actuarial data analytics, AIS Health reported.

Sharp Chief Information and Innovation Officer Michael Reagin says that Amazon will provide the San Diego-based integrated plan and provider with about 500 of the wearable fitness trackers.

Health care industry insiders say that Amazon.com Inc.’s Aug. 27 deal to provide Halo fitness trackers to Sharp HealthCare indicates the retail and tech giant will make big bets on clinical and actuarial data analytics, AIS Health reported.

Sharp Chief Information and Innovation Officer Michael Reagin says that Amazon will provide the San Diego-based integrated plan and provider with about 500 of the wearable fitness trackers.

Sharp will use the devices in two pilot programs, Reagin says. The company will give “about 100” Halos to clinicians, who will wear them in order to track staff performance and prevent burnout. Reagin says the Halo’s much-discussed voice monitoring technology is an essential element of the clinician-focused effort.

The rest of the devices will go to Sharp Health Plan members for remote monitoring purposes.

Michael Abrams, co-founder and managing partner of health care consultancy Numerof & Associates, says that member engagement will be essential to the pilot program’s success. He says that remote monitoring can be stifled if patients don’t fully buy in.

Since the Halo will continually monitor members without any action in their part, Abrams is optimistic that the program will enjoy better adherence than other remote monitoring efforts.

“If plans can get member adoption and perseverance, this could be a great tool for seeing high-level, aggregated community trends and identifying specific interventions,” says Rajshri Ravi, the head of product and technology at ConsejoSano. “Population health management is all about data: the more, the better. It depends on how they use the data. Propensity modeling could predict member behavior and offer insights to increase retention.”

Friso van Reesema, a senior account executive for Eliza, Elli and Essette Solutions, says that Amazon is uniquely well-positioned to offer health plans technology and services that will process that data.

“In the next three years, we’’re going to see some really exciting artificial intelligence and improvement of these platforms that are leveraging these devices to power the platform and be able to roll out exciting algorithms, whether they’re retrospective, prospective, prescriptive,” van Reesema says.

He adds that the deal is likely an attempt by the tech giant to start training its AIs on population health models using data gathered from the Halo pilot.

Radar On Market Access: Some COVID Cost-Sharing Waivers Would Expire Soon

September 8, 2020

Although federal relief legislation tied to the pandemic required health insurers to waive cost sharing for COVID-19 testing, not treatment, many plans opted to do both anyway. In fact, a recent analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that 80% of enrollees in the individual and fully insured group insurance markets were in plans that voluntarily waived out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 at some point during the pandemic, AIS Health reported.

Yet according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker analysis, published Aug. 20, 20% of individual and fully insured group plan enrollees are in plans where a cost-sharing waiver for COVID-19 treatment has already expired, and another 16% are in plans where the waiver is scheduled to expire by the end of September.

Although federal relief legislation tied to the pandemic required health insurers to waive cost sharing for COVID-19 testing, not treatment, many plans opted to do both anyway. In fact, a recent analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found that 80% of enrollees in the individual and fully insured group insurance markets were in plans that voluntarily waived out-of-pocket costs for COVID-19 at some point during the pandemic, AIS Health reported.

Yet according to the Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker analysis, published Aug. 20, 20% of individual and fully insured group plan enrollees are in plans where a cost-sharing waiver for COVID-19 treatment has already expired, and another 16% are in plans where the waiver is scheduled to expire by the end of September.

Daniel McDermott, a KFF research associate and co-author of the analysis, says that the calculus could change for some insurers as the pandemic wears on.

“Among the insurers who have pushed back their expiration date or extended it, a lot of them had initially set expiration deadlines in early spring — so around May — only to push those back as that date approached,” he says. “So I think it would be reasonable to expect that as some of these fall expiration dates approach, some insurers might take the opportunity to re-evaluate…and make a decision about whether to push back that expiration date again.”

Among enrollees in individual and fully insured group health insurance, 15% were in plans where the expiration date of the COVID-19 treatment cost-sharing waiver was either unspecified or set to end when the public health emergency does, observed the KFF analysis.

Meanwhile, KFF’s more recent report also found that 11% of individual market enrollees and 27% of fully insured group market enrollees are in plans that have offered some form of premium credit or reduction during the pandemic.

For the individual and fully insured group markets combined, just 7% of enrollees were in a plan that offered a premium grace period — in which insurers don’t immediately cancel policies for people who fail to pay their premiums on time, while just 2% were in a plan that offered fast-tracked medical loss ratio rebates.

MMIT Reality Check on Breast Cancer HR+/HER2- (Sep 2020)

September 4, 2020

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HR+/HER2-) breast cancer treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for hormone receptor-positive, human epidermal growth factor receptor 2-negative (HR+/HER2-) breast cancer treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT’s team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Payer Coverage: A review of market access for breast cancer (HR+/HER2-) treatments shows that under the pharmacy benefit, about 52% of the lives under commercial formularies are covered with utilization management restrictions.

Trends: In December 2019, the FDA approved Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc.’s and Endo International plc unit Par Pharmaceuticals’ everolimus for the treatment of advanced hormone receptor-positive, HER2- negative breast cancer in postmenopausal women, among other indications. The tablets are the first generics of Novartis International AG’s Afinitor (everolimus).