Drug Costs Too High? Fire the Middleman
Caterpillar’s lowered drug bills show why pharmacy benefit managers are under fire.
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A decade ago, Caterpillar Inc. looked at its employee drug plan and sensed that money was evaporating. The bills for pills had increased inexorably, so the company started to rein in its pharmacy benefit manager, or PBM. The managers are middlemen with murky incentives behind their decisions about which drugs to cover, where they’re sold, and for how much.
In a decade when the average American’s drug spending has spiraled higher, the figure has fallen at the company. By hiring its own doctors and pharmacists, among other changes, Caterpillar has saved tens of millions of dollars a year. “The model is as successful today as it’s ever been,” says Todd Bisping, a global benefits manager at the company.