In January, pharmaceutical companies reported price increases for more than 800 medications, with an average 4.5% rise. Major pharmaceutical companies announced that they would raise prices by 10% more than in 2021. In recent years, the median yearly price increase for medications has been 9% or 10%, respectively. Since they represent for thousands of billions of dollars in annual spending, specialty medications, such as drug products, cancer treatments, and drugs for inflammatory illnesses, are highly expensive and cause for concern.
It is obvious that rising drug costs have an impact on the expense of health insurance plans. Employers can reduce the cost of their pharmaceutical benefits, but they must rely on their pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), which monitors formularies, negotiates rebates, and administers their prescription benefits.
PBM Strategy
Marketers are constantly seeking methods to increase their effectiveness. This could entail enhancing return on investment, increasing return on marketing expenditure, or simply discovering effective ways to gauge their success. While everyone dislikes platitudes and exaggeration, reality is more powerful. The newest and best method for making your content promotional strategies more successful is pillar-based marketing (PBM). You can produce written content that appears on Google’s first page by using PBM and PBM technologies. Gaining page one rankings entitles you to a number of PBM advantages, such as:
- Improved ROI on marketing spend
- Improved organic search presence
- Increased leads and conversions
- Higher subject matter authority
- Quantitative information demonstrating the effectiveness of your content marketing activities
How does PBM apply to the market, though? In the rest of this post, we’ll respond to that and other questions. Pillar-Based Marketing fundamentals, PBM strategies, PBM approaches, and more are all covered.
Starting and Implementing a PBM Strategy
PBM’s guiding principles are built around the concepts of clinical ethical transfusion practice and what you’ve learned through hemovigilance. Internationally, there are currently a lot of programs in place to improve transfusion clinical practice. Use existing practice frameworks for PBM strategy
PBM is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), which has also established a number of goals for action at the global, country, and hospital levels. Establishing a PBM strategy requires leadership and encouragement at all levels, including from senior management, health professionals from diverse clinical specialties within hospitals, regional and national public policymakers and managers, and engaged patients. PBM is patient-centered, and it is crucial that patients actively participate in the formulation, implementation, and assessment of PBM programs.
The planning and implementation of the PBM strategy should involve general practitioners, surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, hematology/transfusion medicine, and laboratory professionals as they all have significant roles to play in surgical PBM. PBM approaches are also useful in non-surgical settings to pediatricians, hematology, obstetric, and other therapeutic specialties. There are numerous examples of how to create and implement a PBM strategy, as well as tools and other materials to support patients and employees, including:
At the Regional/National Level
- Develop a PBM strategy using the help of the health department and executives.
- List important areas of action and their possible advantages.
- Establish a framework with staff and resources to assist implementation.
- Specify standards that may be used to gauge compliance and participation.
- Create instructions and instruments to assist with monitoring and implementation that hospitals can customize locally.
At Hospital Level
- A hospital PBM policy supported by the Medical Transfusion Committee and based on the national/regional guidance above with senior medical/nursing/management support
- Hospital-wide awareness and education
- Medical, nursing, and laboratory professionals in all healthcare settings that deliver blood and component administration
- Establish clinical advocates in important specialties
- Incorporate into new hire orientation
- Convey clear messaging via posters, the intranet, and newsletters.
- Norms encouraging proper use of blood, components, and substitutes
- Educate and engage patients
- Examine the information technology that PBM can use to collect data on blood usage, support audits, and computerized provider order entry (CPOE) systems.
- Audit and data collection – take into account internal and external benchmarking; provide data to all pertinent teams
PBM Strategies
The following strategies can be utilised to attain this goal:
Formulary Management
Employers may find it advantageous to have more control over the regimen and preferred pharmaceuticals. If they understand that the PBM may well have incentives to offer preferred access to specific goods based on access rebates. It is possible to avoid conflicting incentives in the use of specific medications by using internal specialists in medicine and pharmacy to assess goods within therapeutic categories, follow best practices for evidence-based medicine, and take the employer’s lowest net cost of therapy into account. Another advantage is that formulary decisions and approved-use standards will likely have more “buy-in” if they are decided internally by local specialists rather than externally by a PBM.
Internal Pharmacies
Employers in health systems or universities frequently have internal pharmacies that may be used to keep more savings within the company. In some circumstances, a sizeable percentage of the employee prescription benefit could be covered by either 340B drug purchase programs or “own use” purchasing, leveraging more advantageous classes of trades in drug ingredient pricing. Where applicable, these savings could be significant and contribute to increasing the number of benefits that are kept within the company while also extending the benefit accessible to employees.
Internal Specialists in PBM Discussions
A more open and adaptable agreement with PBMs may be explored by making use of internal experience and information. In order to embrace best practices and develop cost-containment initiatives. It is crucial to anticipate the extent of control and adaptability required in vendor relationships.
Utilise Internal Specialists
Collaboration with important stakeholders can help discover new incentive barriers and potential advantages. This collaboration can deal with the behavioral adjustments needed to put new tactics into practice. Employers seek to strike a balance between appropriate use, addressing employee needs, upholding their fiduciary duty, and testing out novel ideas and initiatives that have a good chance of succeeding. Positive results will be increased by rewarding members and prescribers, attending to PBM operating requirements, and communicating with prescribers, customers, and pharmacies via a variety of media. For more information visit Spectrum Pharmacy Solutions.
