Through its full carve-out of the pharmacy benefit for Medicaid and CHIP, the Texas Health & Human Services Commission has saved billions of dollars through drug rebates. Texas' public-sector…
In Georgia and Louisiana, state government is the largest employer and insures the largest group of people. In both states, cost saving changes are under way. Louisiana is looking at privatizing its s…
Chronic pain is a multi-billion dollar market saturated with well-established branded and generic analgesics that are only partially effective. While drugs with novel mechanisms of action that offer g…
Massachusetts' largest health insurer, Blue Cross Blue Shield, is embracing one of the latest trends in pharmacy benefit management, that of value-based benefit design. The Boston-based health pla…
Type 2 diabetes currently affects almost 24 million in the United States and the prevalence of the disease is set to grow at approximately 3% per year over the next five years. As biopharmaceutical co…
Three major insurers — Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Humana and UnitedHealthcare — have teamed up with 11 local physician group practices and a local organization to pilot a patient-centered m…
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With 62 million cases of osteoporosis and osteopenia in the United States and a U.S. market of over $3.8 billion, few brands are competing for a very large appropriation of healthcare dollars. Major…
Health plans have begun to put generic dispensing goals into their pay-for-performance packages with some health plans. Advocate Physicians, which works closely with its payors, instituted a focused g…
Biologics used to treat immune diseases cost much more than their small-molecule counterparts, and so their use involves costs disproportionate to the number of patients treated. As a result of thi…
In what may be a coming trend among large-scale employers with self-managed pharmacy plans, General Mills has hired its own in-house pharmacists to do medication management with targeted employees….
Even as health plans struggle to retain members in a state with one of the highest unemployment rates in the country, moves are under way to redesign health benefits both by the private and public sec…
The Illinois insurance market is poised to be hit by rising unemployment that is hitting the factory towns of Peoria, Rockford and Bradley-Kankakee. These markets are typically led by Blue Cross Blue…
With the economic downturn pushing more Minnesotans out of work, health plans are getting ready for a likely surge in people seeking individual health plans, but are also watching to see if the new fe…
Against a backdrop of rising unemployment and businesses trying to cut healthcare costs, health plans in Pennsylvania are increasing their offerings of individual products and fielding group plans wit…