MHE 2020 Annual Pharmacy Survey pt. 2

Greg Baker, CEO of AffirmedRx, describes his early career, shares some of his critical opinions about the pharmacy benefit management (PBM) industry and how, in his view, his company is offering a better alternative.

In this month’s episode of the "What's On Your Mind podcast," Peter Wehrwein, managing editor of MHE connects with the now Chief Clinical Officer of OptumRx Integrated Pharmacies, David Calabrese. In this conversation, David touches on his transition in January as OptumRx’s former chief pharmacy officer and market president of health plans and PBMs to his new role as Chief Clinical Officer where he now focuses more on things such as specialty pharmacy to home delivery — with an overall goal of creating whole-patient care. Throughout the conversation, Calabrese also touched on the market’s hot topic of insulin prices and behavioral health services within the OptumRx community, among other topics.

Simmering tensions in the pharmacy benefit management (PBM) industry have turned into fault lines. The PBMs challenging the "big three" have formed a trade association. Purchaser coalitions want change. The head of the industry's trade group says inherent marketplace friction has spilled over into political friction.

In this week’s episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite podcast, Briana Contreras, an editor of Managed Healthcare Executive spoke with Julien Pham, MD, founder and managing partner of Third Culture Capital (3CC).

The deliberate disconnection of Change Healthcare to ring fence a cyberattack entered its seventh day today. Prescribers are finding ways to get pharmacy claims processed, and UnitedHealth Group says disruption to the dispensing of prescriptions has been minimal. But independent pharmacies want more information and protection from financial consequences from pharmacy benefit managers.

The information systems of Change Healthcare, a recently acquired subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, were disconnected on Wednesday.