Expert Discusses Disruptors, High-Cost Drugs in Marketplace

Christina Barrington, PharmD, vice president of pharmacy programs at Priority Health, discusses current disruptors in the marketplace and high-cost drugs.

Q: What key challenges are facing managed care pharmacies, and how do you use the wealth of data to address those challanges?

There are so many disruptors right now in the marketplace. We have high-cost drugs. We have legislation that's impacting us on a daily basis. We have new programs that are in the market that we would like to be able to offer. Our members, many times, cannot participate in all of those. I think for us keeping pharmacy affordable so that our members have access to the drugs that they need at a cost that they can afford.

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Q: How can pharmacists help to address these challenges?

I have a team of pharmacists on a daily basis that are looking for opportunities for us to appropriately manage the medications that we cover to develop benefits that are affordable for our members. They also do predictive modeling, so that we can predict how a new medication or therapeutic area might impact our costs, so that we can help mitigate that trend so we can keep premiums low and copays low for our members.