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Union: CVS flogged costly med for Merck
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A group of labor unions are in a tug-of-war with CVS Caremark's pharmacy benefits management, and a Merck diabetes drug stands right in the middle of it. The unions say CVS pushed doctors to prescribe Januvia to specific patients, violating patient privacy and potentially boosting drug costs.
In a letter to physicians obtained by the union group, CVS promoted Januvia, and said it had identified appropriate patients for the drug via a review of prescription drug claims processed by Caremark, its PBM unit. At the bottom of the letter, one line of type says Merck paid for the mailing, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The WSJ points out that Januvia is as much as eight times more costly than other diabetes treatments and that some experts say patients may respond just as well to the older, cheaper meds. The union group claims that CVS's promotion of the expensive alternative shows that the company is putting its interests ahead of the businesses that hire it to manage their pharmacy benefits. As you know, companies hire PBMs as a cost-control tactic.
For its part, Merck says that it didn't get any personal patient information for the mailing. It paid to send the letter "to help inform physicians about additional treatment options," a spokeswoman told the WSJ.
The union group, Change to Win, is publicizing the CVS letter as part of a campaign to change laws governing the way PBMs operate. The group wants legislation to require PBMs to keep patient info private, to disclose discounts and rebates from drugmakers and to require that drug-switching result in cost savings for the PBM customers.
- read the WSJ story
Related Articles:
PBMs making big bucks off specialty drugs
Medicare peeved by PBM markups
Comments
By Anonymous | Posted 12:54pm | November 14, 2008
Patient info should damn well be private. So should private business agreements. As far as "cost savings" goes, what kind of cost savings? Lower medication costs? Fewer trips to the emergency room? Lower surgical costs? Pharmaceuticals are generally MUCH lower cost than surgery, but some newer drugs work much better than older ones. In some cases, it doesn't make a big difference; in some cases, it makes ALL the difference. Trust your doctor, not the insurance companies and drug companies.
By Anonymous | Posted 10:52pm | November 17, 2008
No matter how many patients a drug has been used on....
No matter how successful any drug was reported to be....
No matter how FEW failures there have been with any drug....
No matter how few side effects have occurred... there will always be patients do not fall into the mold of all the others because... NO TWO PATIENTS ARE ALIKE. Each patient has factors that are different thyan all others before him/her. MEDICINE IS AN ART NOT A SCIENCE. EVERY TIME A DOCTOR WRITES A PRESCRIPTION THERE IS NO WAY OF KNOWING IN ADVANCE HOW THE PATIENT WILL RESPOND. EVERY PRESCRIPTION IS AN EXPERIMENT. IT IS QUITE A TRIBUTE TO THE DRUG INDUSTRY THAT THEY ARE ABLE TO DELIVER AS MANY PRODUCTS AS THEY HAVE DONE WITH AS GOOD A RECORD AS HAS BEEN THE CASE. THERE ARE NO GUARANTEES IN MEDICINE. YOU PAYS YOUR NICKLE AND TAKES YOUR CHANCES. Too many variables to expect results of one patient or hundreds of patients to exactly predict the results to be had with many additional patients.
By Anonymous | Posted 10:08am | November 18, 2008
Prices on some newer drugs have made it impossible for retired seniors to afford.We all have to worry about the donut hole regardless of the effect of medication we are using.
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