Yesterday, I examined the magnitude of the gross-to-net bubble—the growing spread between a manufacturer’s list price for a drug and the net price to a third-party payer after rebates. See New Data Show the Gross-to-Net Rebate Bubble Growing Even Bigger.
The bubble directly affects patients’ out-of-pocket costs. Many patients now have benefit plans with deductibles and are therefore required to pay the full, undiscounted cost of their prescriptions. Patients taking specialty drugs face large coinsurance computed using the undiscounted list price.
One solution replaces formulary payments made to plan sponsors with prescription discounts for patients at the point of sale (POS). Last week, CVS Health became the first pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) to publicly embrace and explain this alternative benefit design. See below for details.
Which makes me wonder: Do point-of-sale rebates solve the patients’ problems that the gross-to-net bubble causes? And will this benefit design mark the beginning of the end for the PBMs’ traditional economic model?
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