Just two weeks ago, I recharged my short audio podcast, Wee Dose of Radical Transparency. If you didn’t catch the 3rd episode, you can find it here. Did you happen to catch the recent news in late-February of 8 blue chip corporations coming together to push back on Traditional PBMs and demand transparency?

Pepsi is one of the eight companies involved – Along with Chevron, ExxonMobil, Sodexo, Solvay USA and Yum! – along with two others that wanted to remain private.

Here’s the quote from Pepsi’s Vice President of Global Benefits and Wellness:

“We’re looking at PBM contracting differently than we have in the past because I don’t want to control just what we spend on drugs. I’m trying to control my overall health care spending.”

The benefits leader continued with the following:

“To change the nature of how we contracted with PBMs, we needed to take rebates off the table…Instead, we negotiated with the PBM from the acquisition cost, net of rebates and net of the average wholesale price.”

In other words, the contract is built around the PBMs actual cost of medications. The point is…the group will now be paying what the PBM pays for drugs. But, you don’t have to be a Fortune 500 company to receive this level of transparency.

Having spent an entire day with a local, transparent PBM touring their facility and learning of their strategic initiatives for 2020 and beyond, I can assure you two things:

(1) They are delivering complete, radical transparency for my clients – And, I don’t work with any Fortune 500 Companies.

(2) And, similar to Pepsi, this local, transparent PBM is focused on not just drug cost for plan sponsors, but the full spectrum of healthcare and total cost. I’m excited to see the collaboration between Apex Benefits and this PBM continue to develop with regards to population health management.

Have I peaked your interest yet? Are you interested in seeing how defining your own pricing benchmark could drop costs out of your pharmacy benefits contract?

If you’re interested in this concept of transparency and want to learn more, we offer a PBM contract health assessment through our ApexRx program.

You can look in the description for the link to our ApexRx program or just reach out to me at slong@apexbg.com.