January 29, 2009 
Some of you will remember that I wrote about this topic several months ago – The Brand Only PBM. As a follow-up to that article, I got interviewed by Neal Learner from Drug Benefit News about $4 generics. The interview got published today and is available here on page 6.
He asked about a few topics:
* How are PBMs and health plans reacting to the $4 generics programs?
* Are the programs used by people with insurance?
* How many generics could be offered at this price?
* Do they present a threat to the PBM?
* Will they impact the Rx Benefit?
BUT, what I find to be an interesting topic related to this is what happens if the USPS goes to 5-day a week mail service either closing on Saturdays or for some day during the week? How would this impact mail order and the PBM? I would think this would impact mail order by either delaying the distribution cycle or by forcing them to use FedEx or UPS which would be more costly. Another challenge to the primary profit driver?
Enabling Healthy Decisions 
I added the link to the PDF in case you’re interested.
BTW – A comment from a friend of mine pointed out that retailers haven’t seen significant marketshare movement from these programs…which netting it out means that they gave up margin and didn’t get anything for it.