Complimentary Podcast: Medicaid Expansion and more

With Medicaid expansion and Health Insurance Exchanges on the horizon, inclusion on Medicaid formularies is especially crucial to commercial success. You are invited to download this free podcast featuring Cindy Pigg, Senior Vice President of Pharmacy at Magellan Medicaid Administration and hear what she thinks are the biggest opportunities for manufacturers and PBMs as a result of healthcare reform.

The following are just some of the topics Cindy will cover:

· How Medicaid expansion will impact patient care and what pharmaceutical companies can do to prepare

· How she anticipates Medicaid will be affected by growing costs for specialty medications

· How pharmacists can help states and MCOs overcome challenges created as a result of healthcare reform

Full podcast MP3 now available!

Download the full podcast PDF!

Ms. Pigg is a speaker at the 21st Annual Medicaid Managed Care Congress, taking place on May 20 – 22 in Baltimore. Other speakers include CMS representatives, state Medicaid Directors and health plan executives.

To learn more, download our full brochure.

As a member of the healthcare insights, you can use priority code XP1826BLOG to receive 15% off of the standard rate to register. If you have any questions or need any further information, feel free to email kdevery@iirusa.com or visit the webpage.

Cheers,
The Medicaid Managed Care Congress

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CMS AMPlifies Anxiety As Industry Wrestles With Non-Guidance

“MDRP Perspectives” Explores Impending AMP Ruling Implications: How To Do When All You Know Is What Not To Do?

By Marc Dresner, IIR USA

A veteran attorney and lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry once told me that the name of the Bill speaks volumes: Whatever the title says, the inference is that the industry targeted has been doing the opposite.

Consider the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act passed in March 2010. Based on counsel’s insight, that’s pretty cynical rhetoric.

A more appropriate title might've been the Calculation Crystal Clarity Act, because for the second time in just four years (the first being 2007’s Deficit Reduction Act) the US government turned AMP calculation into a guesswork methodology.

Jennifer Norton, iMany

According to Jennifer Norton, Senior Director of Life Sciences Strategy and Solutions at iMany—a contract performance management solutions provider—CMS has done an admirable job of telling manufacturers what not to do since 2010, but they’ve been rather vague when it comes to guidance on what to do.

As a result, manufacturers are banging their heads against the wall trying to comply with rules that to date only exist in CMS’s imagination.

But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel: CMS is expected to issue an AMP ruling soon, and chances are whatever you’re currently doing may not be completely wrong.

In this episode of MDRP Perspectives, Norton provides a comprehensive overview of the situation, identifies potential potholes to watch out for, and offers sound advice on how to best avoid becoming a casualty of well-intentioned, ham-handed regulation.

Just bear in mind that getting direction from CMS is like asking what’s the fastest route from New York to Honolulu and being told not to walk…

Listen to the podcast here.

Download the transcript here.

Author’s note: Jennifer Norton will be speaking on “New Contract Management Strategies and Practices Following Healthcare Reform” at the 16th Annual Summit on the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program (MDRP) September 14-16 in Chicago.

For more information or to register, please visit www.medicaiddrugrebates.com

And for further background and a good chuckle, check out Jen Norton’s stint as field correspondent covering the government pricing nerd uprising at CMS headquarters in Baltimore here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR/INTERVIEWER
Marc Dresner is an IIR USA communication lead with a background in trade journalism and marketing. He is the former executive editor of Pharma Market Research Report, a confidential newsletter for market research professionals specializing in the pharmaceutical, biotech and health care industries. He may be reached at mdresner@iirusa.com. Follow him @mdrezz.

Saving trillions in health care, one patient at a time

According to Public Radio International and WNYC, "The debate on healthcare reform proceeds in Washington will make news over the next several months, if the process results in actual healthcare reform. The beginning of the conversation involved a coalition of industry, private sector, and federal players coming together for a voluntary series of cost-cutting moves that involve creating incentives for people and the healthcare industry to do better to control costs."

To listen to their entire coverage on this story, please click the link below to hear the report.

Listen to PRI and WNYC's on-air discussion.

What steps are needed, the small steps, to get the big issue of healthcare reform solidified by the Obama administration?