Today’s WorkCompWire has a great piece authored by PMSI CEO EIleen Auen on the differences between work comp and group pharmacy management.
Among Eileen’s points are:
– “Group health benefits generally focus on sickness and illness while workers’ compensation focuses on workplace injuries and returning individuals to work. Although a fairly obvious difference, it underlies many of the other differences that make workers’ compensation unique, including drug mix.” (I’d add that work comp ONLY covers drugs specifically for treatment of the occupational injury or illness).
– “The types of drugs used. Because of the focus of care, the medication mix in workers’ compensation is much more focused towards pain management rather than illness management.”
There’s quite a bit more on differences in clinical management, formulary, and financial incentives, and how these effect prescriber and patient behavior.
Well worth the read, especially if you’re an investor type trying to understand the WC PBM industry.
(Note PMSI is a member of CompPharma, and Eileen is a good friend)
Jan
17
Joe, I follow your blog and believe you have good incite into the Obama Health reform. This link was forward to me and I have a hard time believing it is true and I think it is propaganda put out by conservative Republicans. I thought I would send to you. It is a neurosurgeon calling into a radio show and telling that they are going to have review committees for patients over 70 needing neurosurgery. Your thoughts. Link is below.
https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment?ui=2&ik=ae909d315f&view=att&th=134e20e19125481c&attid=0.1&disp=safe&zw&saduie=AG9B_P9nghpm5PsduUiU1Yii5tFV&sadet=1326827897720&sads=HxDAgqvjDL-lY1XWW23mjXiUvhw&sadssc=1
Great post. It’s really no wonder that WC is such an expensive system. There doesn’t seem to be any incentive to reduce costs, at least to the patients and clinicians involved.