Mail-order pharmacies garnered a larger-than-ever share of the
prescription drug business due to the pandemic.
Mail order will increase:
- "We're seeing a steady increase of mail
order," says Brian Anderson, a principal at Milliman Inc. He expects
that, in the next few years, delivered medication will account for half of
all fills, with at least 20% of total volume originating from mail-order
pharmacies.
- Anderson says Milliman's clients have seen mail order
grow and remain high. He adds that fills overall are up. In particular,
there are notable "increases in mental health categories, [like]
antidepressants," Anderson says.
Data varies:
- Steve Johnson, vice president of health outcomes at
Blue Cross Blue Shield affiliate-owned PBM Prime Therapeutics, says via
email that Prime has seen prescription dispensing return to a pre-pandemic
baseline in various categories.
- "For some of our Rx Collaborative employer
clients, mail order utilization has either remained flat or continues to
trend slightly downward since 2Q20. On average, our employers are seeing a
gradual decrease of 5 percentage points of mail prescriptions since
2Q20," Chantell Sell Regan, Pharm.D., national pharmacy practice
clinical lead at Willis Towers Watson, wrote in an email.
Rethink retail pharmacies:
- Anderson says that it's helpful to understand the shift
to mail order as a move to home delivery away from a strict retail
experience rather than a transition to mail-order pharmacy dispensing. He
expects that many fills will still originate in a retail pharmacy but will
be delivered after being filled.
- Ashraf Shehata, national sector lead for life sciences
at KPMG, says that PBMs have essentially become mail-order retailers, and
need to start thinking in a consumer-centric manner. A challenge for the
sector, he explains, "is rationalizing retail versus PBM"
operations.
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