Nov 13, 2017 3:06pm
Medicare enrollees, who have watched their
out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs climb in recent years, might be in
for a break.
Federal officials are exploring how
beneficiaries could get a share of certain behind-the-scenes fees and discounts
negotiated by insurers and pharmacy benefit managers,
or PBMs, who together administer Medicare’s Part D drug program. Supporters say
this could help enrollees by reducing the price tag of their prescription drugs
and slow their approach to the coverage gap in the Part D program.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services could disclose the fees to the public and apply them to what
enrollees pay for their drugs. However, there’s no guarantee that such an
approach would be included in a proposed rule change that could land any day,
according to several experts familiar with the discussions.
“It’s obvious something has to be done about
this. This is causing higher drug prices for patients and taxpayers,” Rep. Earl
“Buddy” Carter, R-Ga., a pharmacist, said this week.
While Medicare itself cannot negotiate drug
prices, the health insurers and PBMs have long been able to negotiate with
manufacturers who are willing to pay rebates and other discounts so their
products win a good spot on a health plan’s list of approved drugs.
Federal officials described these fees in a
January fact sheet as direct and indirect
remuneration, or DIR fees.
In recent years, pharmacies and specialty
pharmacies have also begun paying fees to PBMs. These fees, which are different
than the rebates and discounts offered by manufacturers, can be controversial,
in part, because they are retroactive or “clawed back” from the pharmacies.
The controversy is also part of the reason
advocates, such as pharmacy organizations, have lobbied for this kind of policy
change.
PBMs have long contended that they help
contain costs and are improving drug availability rather than driving up
prices.
Pressure has been building for the
administration to take action. Earlier this year, the federal agency’s fact
sheet set the stage for change, describing how the fees kept Medicare Part D
monthly premiums lower but translated to higher out-of-pocket spending by
enrollees and increased costs to the program overall.
In early October, Carter led a group of more
than 50 House members in a letter urging Medicare to dedicate a share of the
fees to reducing the price paid by Part D beneficiaries when they buy a drug.
Also in the House, Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Va., introduced a related bill.
On the Senate side, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa,
and 10 other senators sent a letter in July to CMS Administrator Seema Verma as
well as officials at the Department of Health and Human Services asking for
more transparency in the fees—which could lead to a drop in soaring drug prices
if patients get a share of the action.
A response from Verma last month noted that
the agency is analyzing how altering DIR requirements would affect Part D
beneficiary premiums—a key point that muted previous political conversations.
But advocates said the tone of discussions
with the agency and on Capitol Hill have changed this year. That’s partly
because Medicare beneficiaries have become more vocal about their rising
out-of-pocket costs, increasing scrutiny of these fees.
Ellen Miller, a 70-year-old Medicare enrollee
in New York City’s borough of Queens, sent a letter to the Trump administration
demanding lower drug prices. Miller’s prescription prices went up this year,
sending her into the Medicare “doughnut hole” by April, compared with October
in 2016. With coverage, Miller pays about $200 a month for several
prescriptions that help her cope with COPD, or chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease, as well as another chronic illness.
In the doughnut hole, where coverage drops
until catastrophic coverage kicks in, her out-of-pocket costs climb to $600 a
month.
It’s “ridiculous, and that doesn’t count my
medical bills,” Miller said.
The number of Medicare Part D enrollees with
high out-of-pocket costs, like Miller, is on the rise. And in 2015, 3.6 million
Medicare Part D enrollees had drug spending above the program’s catastrophic
threshold of $7,062, according to a report released this week by the
Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent
program of the foundation.)
Supporters of the rule change say making the
fees more transparent and applying them to what enrollees pay would provide
relief for beneficiaries like Miller.
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association
(PCMA), which represents the PBMs who negotiate the rebates and discounts, says
changing the fees would endanger the Part D program.
“In Medicare Part D, you have one of the most
successful programs in health care,” said Mark Merritt, president and chief
executive of PCMA. “Why anybody would choose to destabilize the program is
beyond me.”
CMS declined to comment on a vague reference
to a pending rule change, which was posted in September.
For now, though, according to the CMS fact
sheet, the fees pose two compounding problems for seniors and the agency:
·
Enrollees pay more out-of-pocket for each drug, causing them to
reach the program’s coverage gap quicker. In 2018, the so-called doughnut
hole begins once an enrollee and the plan spends $3,750 and ends
at $5,000 out-of-pocket, and then catastrophic coverage begins.
·
Medicare, thus taxpayers, pays more for each beneficiary. Once
enrollees reach the threshold for catastrophic coverage, Medicare pays the bulk
cost of the drugs.
CVS Health, one of the nation’s top three
PBMs, released a statement in February calling the
fees part of a pay-for-performance program that helps improve patient care. The
fees, CVS noted, are fully disclosed and help drive down how much Medicare pays
plans that help run the program.
“CVS Health is not profiting from this
program,” the company noted.
Express Scripts, also among the nation’s top
three PBMs, agreed that the fees lower costs and give incentives for the
pharmacies to deliver quality care. As for criticism from the pharmacies,
Jennifer Luddy, director of corporate communications for the company, said,
“We’re not administering fees in a way that penalizes a pharmacy over something
they cannot control.”
Regardless, even if a rule is changed or a law
is passed, there is some question as to how easily the fees can translate into
lower costs for seniors, in part because the negotiations are so complicated.
When the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission,
which provides guidance to Congress, discussed the negotiations in September,
Commissioner Jack Hoadley thanked the presenters and said, “In my eyes, what
you’ve revealed is a real maze of financial … entanglements.”
Tara O’Neill Hayes, deputy director of
healthcare policy at the conservative American Action Forum, said passing on
the discounts and fees to beneficiaries when they buy the drug could be
difficult because costs crystallize only after a sale has occurred.
“They can’t be known,” said Hayes, who created
an illustration of
the negotiations.
“There’s money flowing many different ways
between many different stakeholders,” Hayes said.
Kaiser
Health News, a nonprofit health newsroom whose stories appear in
news outlets nationwide, is an editorially independent part of the Kaiser
Family Foundation.
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