Prescription Drugs
Why Employers Care
Multinational employers are faced with many challenges in the prescription drug marketplace globally. Employee access to medications, rising costs, poorly organized or non-existent networks for distribution, and counterfeit medications are but a few of the current difficulties. The impact of appropriate drug management on employee health and well-being cannot be underestimated.
Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) organize the market for prescription drugs. PBMs secure deep discounts from drug manufacturers and retail pharmacies for large employers or health plans. They try to influence physicians' prescribing habits and encourage the use of lower-cost drugs, including generic substitutes for brand-name medications.
What Employers Can Do
Member companies of the Global Health Benefits Institute are interested in providing employees with educational information on drug safety and on the use of generic medications in regions of the world where they are effective alternatives to brand name drugs. The tools listed here have been developed for that purpose.
The Institute also offered a collaborative project to develop a pharmacy benefit management service in Brazil and a summary of this work also follows.
Global Health Benefits Institute Resources
- Brazil
- 2007/2008 Brazilian Health Benefits Study: Focus on Pharmacy Benefits – April 2, 2008
Vidalink presented the findings of its employer-based health benefits survey. The survey focuses on employers' management of pharmacy benefits and Brazilian human resource executives' perceptions regarding the value of pharmacy benefits.
Note that this is a large presentation, and it will take time to download.
- Pharmacy Benefit Management Services in Brazil – November 28, 2007
This paper describes the results of a collaborative project conducted by IBM, CVS/Caremark and Vidalink to develop a pharmacy benefit management service in Brazil.
- PBM Services Assessment Presentation – December 14, 2005
DDescribes the current state of pharmacy services in Brazil and the opportunity to create a PBM system.
- Drug Safety and Generics Tip Sheets
- Solutions Online (see Pharmacy)
|
.