Big Month For Vasectomies

April 8, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Based on several articles over the past year, this should be a big month for vasectomies.

Last year, Forbes pointed out that the scheduling of vasectomies jumps dramatically before big sports events – The Masters, Final Four, Football.  Apparently, people want to get “snipped” on the Friday and have a good reason to sit around all weekend and recover while they watch their favorite sport.  Talk about planning.

And, last month, there was an article about the spike in vasectomies due to the economy.  No hard data about why, but the article hypothesizes that people are concerned about the additional costs of children and want to get the procedure done while they have health insurance.

Consumerism, Healthcare, Managed Care, Research, Value Propositions

Impact of Rising Health Care Costs

April 8, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

These are straight from the National Coalition on Health Care (NCHC), but they represent a sobering view of the impact of our rising costs. For the broader list of facts, you can go to their website.

  • In 2008, health care spending in the United States reached $2.4 trillion, and was projected to reach $3.1 trillion in 2012.1 Health care spending is projected to reach $4.3 trillion by 2016.1
  • Premiums for employer-based health insurance rose by 5.0 percent in 2008. In 2007, small employers saw their premiums, on average, increase 5.5 percent. Firms with less than 24 workers, experienced an increase of 6.8 percent.2
  • Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.3
  • Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers. Unless something changes dramatically, health insurance costs will overtake profits by the end of 2008.4
  • The percentage of Americans under age 65 whose family-level, out-of-pocket spending for health care, including health insurance, that exceeds $2,000 a year, rose from 37.3 percent in 1996 to 43.1 percent in 2003 – a 16 percent increase.5
  • A recent study by Harvard University researchers found that the average out-of-pocket medical debt for those who filed for bankruptcy was $12,000. The study noted that 68 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy had health insurance. In addition, the study found that 50 percent of all bankruptcy filings were partly the result of medical expenses.6 Every 30 seconds in the United States someone files for bankruptcy in the aftermath of a serious health problem.
  • A new survey shows that more than 25 percent said that housing problems resulted from medical debt, including the inability to make rent or mortgage payments and the development of bad credit ratings.7
  • About 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs. 8
  • A survey of Iowa consumers found that in order to cope with rising health insurance costs, 86 percent said they had cut back on how much they could save, and 44 percent said that they have cut back on food and heating expenses.9

Notes

  1. Keehan, S. et al. “Health Spending Projections Through 2017, Health Affairs Web Exclusive W146: 21 February 2008.
  2. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Employee Health Benefits: 2008 Annual Survey. September 2008.
  3. California Health Care Foundation. Health Care Costs 101 — 2005. 02 March 2005.
  4. McKinsey and Company. The McKinsey Quarterly Chart Focus Newsletter, “Will Health Benefit Costs Eclipse Profits,” September, 2004.
  5. Agency for Heathcare Research and Quality. Out-of-Pocket Expenditures on Health Care and Insurance Premiums Among the Non-elderly Population, 2003, March 2006.
  6. Himmelstein, D, E. Warren, D. Thorne, and S. Woolhander, “Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy, ” Health Affairs Web Exclusive W5-63, 02 February , 2005.
  7. The Access Project. Home Sick: How Medical Debt Undermines Housing Security. Boston, MA, November 2005.
  8. Robertson, C.T., et al. “Get Sick, Get Out: The Medical Causes of Home Mortgage Foreclosures,” Health Matrix, 2008
  9. Selzer and Company Inc. Department of Public Health 2005 Survey of Iowa Consumers, September 2005.
Books / Articles, Healthcare, Managed Care, Research, Value Propositions

Kaiser Family Foundation Health Care Data

April 4, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

The Kaiser Family Foundation always has some great data points on health surveys, data trends, and other topics. In some cases, they have made these into slides that you can download and re-use.

I grabbed a bunch of them which you can see below. To download them yourself, go to their website.

Healthcare, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, Research, Value Propositions

The Connected Consumer – Razorfish

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This was also an interesting look at online consumers and their influence versus brands.

Consumerism, General Business, Marketing / Communications, Research, Social Media, Software, Technology, Value Propositions

Beyond Buzz Slideshow

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I came across this and thought I would share it.

General Business, Innovation, Marketing / Communications, Research, Social Media, Software, Technology, Value Propositions

Getting Kids Active

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

In today’s computer world, this is as much a challenge for some kids as it is for us adults to find the time. But, it’s important to start the practice early. I liked Dr. Dolgoff’s blog entry on this. It’s pretty straightforward but a good reminder for all of us.

Step One: Let your children see you enjoying exercise.

Step Two: When your child is old enough (around age 3), allow them to participate in very small amounts. You don’t want to overwhelm them.

Step Three: Don’t say no!

Step Four: Step it up!

Step Five: Keep it up!

exercise, Healthcare, Weblogs

Finally Digging Out

April 3, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 2 Comments

As someone who is semi-compulsive about e-mails, I finally reached a point where I knew I was way too far behind.

When an e-mail comes in, I read it and either delete it, respond to it, file it, or leave it in the inbox for further reading before responding. Ideally, the e-mails in my inbox are less than 50 even when I get a few hundred a day.

The other day, I hit 500 in my inbox which was too much. It was stress inducing. Finally, I am back down below 250. I hope I can get below 100 before Monday. I would feel so much better.

General Thoughts

The Inbound Only Landline

April 1, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I heard about an interesting service today which is being offered by one of the telecommunication companies. They are rolling out a landline for $5 a month that receives inbound calls, but you can only call 911 for outbound calls. Very interesting.

phone

Marketing / Communications, Technology, Value Propositions

OTC Equivalents to Prescription Drugs

April 1, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

In some cases, there are OTCs (over-the-counter) medications which a consumer can choose to use in place of a prescription drug. Financially, it’s a question of what your copay is versus the cost of the OTC medication.

The biggest drugs in the past few years to go OTC have been Claritin and Prilosec which are now both available as brands and generics over-the-counter.

I found this list that BCBS of TN had put out which I thought I would post as a link. It does a good job of creating a clean wall chart of some of the alternatives.

Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy, Value Propositions

Teva On Year Of Affordable Healthcare

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Teva (a generic drug manufacturer) has rolled out a new site call Year of Affordable Healthcare to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the significant generic legislation (Hatch-Waxman Act). As part of that, they have rolled out a few videos in the Mac vs. PC approach.

u

Consumerism, Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy, Politics, Value Propositions

Taxing Cigarettes – For Health or Financial Purposes?

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I heard this discussion on the radio this morning and found it very interesting.  Do we keep raising taxes on cigarettes to reduce smoking (i.e., improve health and long-term liabilities) or is it to drive money into our government since we don’t think people will quit?

It’s an interesting question because if it’s for health purposes then there might be lots of different things that could be done – subsidize patches (for example).

General Thoughts, Healthcare

Economy On Food Choices

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

McDonald’s continues to do well in this economy although we all know fast food is not the healthiest food.  I think an interesting question is whether the lower priced meals being rolled out at TGIF, Chilis, and other chain restaurants will be good (on a relative scale) for us.

Without really drilling down, I would assume that maybe the economy will finally address the portion size issue.  One easy way to lower pricing would be to lower portion sizes and provide consumers with reasonably sized, simple meals at a reasonable price.

I think all of this points to how this economy (the Great Recession?) will make fundamental and long-lasting changes to our world.

General Thoughts

Do Google Searches Tell Us Anything About Wellpoint Buyer?

March 30, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I doubt it, but it is interesting.  After I first posted about Wellpoint’s PBM (NextRx) being for sale, most of the Google searches that came to my blog came from people searching using some string about Express Scripts buying NextRx.  Now, there are more searches coming from people searching about Medco buying NextRx.  I get some occasional ones about Wal-Mart and Walgreens but that’s about it.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much more context on the searches to know who’s doing them.

Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy

Marathon / Triathalon Deaths Per Million

March 29, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

An article that came out yesterday points out that there is a much higher risk of heart problems in the triathalon especially around jumping into the cold water for the open swim.  It puts the deaths per million participants at 15 compared to 4-8 deaths per million marathon participants.  Certainly, if you are jumping into either sport, you should train appropriately and talk with your physician about any concerns or ideally get checked out for any potential heart complications.

But, I think it’s also important to put these in perspective.  According to FARS (Fatality Analysis Reporting System), the statistics on fatalities from car accidents are:

  • 13.61 per 100,000 people
  • 16.05 per 100,000 registered vehicles
  • 19.96 per 100,000 licensed drivers
Books / Articles, exercise, Healthcare, Research

Given The Link Between Money And Health

March 29, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

As we have seen in numerous studies over the past six months, healthcare spending is clearly affected by the economy.  It is not “recession proof” as many had believed.  Adherence is down.  People are skipping preventative care.

With that in mind, I just thought I would point people to Clark Howard who is the new consumer “advisor” on CNN that focuses on current issues.

General Thoughts, Value Propositions

Some of The Worse Lunches

March 28, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This whole article on restaurants is worth reading to show you just how bad some meals are for you.  Let me pull out a few of the scariest meals:

QUIZNO’S

Large Prime Rib Cheesesteak Sub

  • 1,490 calories
  • 92 g fat (22.5 g saturated, 2 g trans)
  • 2,620 mg sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating four Dunkin Donuts cheese danishes!

CHILI’S

Crispy Sweet Chile Glazed Chicken Crispers

  • 1,930 calories
  • 112 g fat (17 g saturated)
  • 4,190 mg sodium
  • Calorie equivalent: Like eating an entire medium Pizza Hut 12″

PANERA

Italian Combo on Ciabatta sandwich

  • 1,050 calories
  • 47 g fat (18 g saturated, 1 g trans)
  • 3,050 mg of sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating 6 slices of Papa John’s cheese pizza!

HARDEE’S

2/3-lb Monster Thickburger

  • 1,420 calories
  • 108 g fat (43 g saturated)
  • 2,770 mg sodium
  • Saturated fat equivalent: Like eating 43 strips of Oscar Mayer bacon!

BURGER KING

Triple Whopper Sandwich with cheese and mayo

  • 1,250 calories
  • 84 g fat (32 g saturated, 2.5 g trans)
  • 1,600 mg sodium
  • Fat equivalent: Like eating 10 slices of Papa John’s cheese pizza!

Books / Articles, General Thoughts, Healthcare

What’s Your Blog’s Personality?

March 28, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I found this an interesting “blog analyzer“.  You put in your blog’s URL and it tells you the Myers-Briggs personality type of the author.  Mine was right on – INTJ.  I guess it shouldn’t be too surprising, but I can imagine all the opportunities to use that information in scale in the future.  As blogs, Twitter, Facebook, and other sites become the norm, an analyzer like this could categorize people’s personality types.

If a service could be created, communications could be tweaked based on personality to best get people to respond.

Innovation, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology

Drug Importation

March 26, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

From what I saw this morning, it looks like the administration is going to go down this path.  I don’t think it’s a good idea.  I will point to my post from a few months ago on why.

My prediction is that it’s an arbitratage opportunity which will appeal to the public, but will cost us more in the long run.

On the flipside, I guess it’s better than having people take buses to Canada to buy drugs and sneak them into the country risking arrest.

bus1

General Thoughts, Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy, Politics

Responsibility Based Healthcare

March 25, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Are we finally to a point economically where healthy people will get tired of bearing the cost burden of supporting their sicker coworkers?  As costs continue to skyrocket, most people probably don’t realize that those are from a minority of their coworkers who have chronic conditions.  (Or in the case of Medicare, are from the costs incurred in the final year of life.)

If you’re like me, I generally don’t mind the risk pool concept (since I don’t know where I might end up any year).  And, I certainly don”t mind paying for people who are genetically pre-disposed to some condition (we all may be in that bucket someday), but I could take issue with paying for people who don’t comply with their physician’s recommendations (most of us), don’t act preventatively (most of us), abuse their body with things like smoking, and I could go on.

It got me thinking this morning about a model where we were able to push costs to people based on them taking responsibility for their care (i.e., “responsibility-based care”).  While we certainly won’t be at a place in the near future where genomics dominates and we can pull out people who can’t control their health, we can track things like compliance and adherence once we get an integrated HIT (healthcare information technology) system in place.

Additionally, we might get someday to a place where we can offer incentives based on active management and results which are self-reported by remote devices that track blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, etc.  But, many of these have issues around confidentiality and would challenge the risk pool process that we use today to underwrite medical costs.

I am not sure what the right answer is, but I think it’s about time for this debate to rear its head again with more energy.

Consumerism, Healthcare, Managed Care, Politics

PCMA Carve-Out Advertisement

March 24, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

I was a little surprised to see the latest PCMA advertisement that goes for the jugular on pharma companies that support generic carve-out legislation.

pcma-ad

What is the “generic carve-out” concept – legislation which proposes making certain classes of drugs exempt from the ability of the pharmacy to substitute an A-B rated generic for its brand equivalent when the physician has not marked the prescription – Dispense As Written (DAW).

Healthcare, Marketing / Communications, PBM / Pharmacy, Politics, Research, Value Propositions

Correlation or Causality

March 23, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This is a typical mistake that many people make.  They see correlation and mistake it for causality.

From Dictionary.com:

  • Correlation = the degree to which two or more attributes or measurements on the same group of elements show a tendency to vary together.
  • Causality = the principle of or relationship between cause and effect.

I see the difference as correlation shows two things that appear to be related (i.e., I ate a strawberry and had a rash the next day therefore I must be allergic.)  Causality is a direct relationship that is proven where one clearly causes the other (i.e., I went to the allergist and had a bunch of studies done.  I am allergic to strawberries).

There was an article in USA Today called “Many think they have drug allergies” on March 9, 2009.  Apparently many people think they have allergies when they don’t.  In one study discussed in the article, 90% of those people who said they were allergic to penicillin where not when a skin test was done to check.

  • People often mistake side effects with allergic reactions. (e.g., stomach ache)
  • People trust their mothers (i.e., relying on hearsay versus facts).
  • People trust their doctors (when tests may not have been conducted).
  • People grow out of some allergies.

The point of all this is that you need to rely on facts and isolate them to prove causality.  Don’t just look for things that happen at the same time.

Books / Articles, Healthcare, Research

How Easy It Is To Overeat

March 21, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

This is a good article that I saw on MSN this morning talking about calories in pizza, ice cream, orange juice, rice, and other foods and how quickly we overeat by simply not managing portions.

How many of us eat one slice of pizza for a meal (for example)?

Books / Articles, Healthcare

$2.3T on Healthcare and 47M Uninsured – National Disgrace

March 21, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Kaiser Permanente recently launched a series of advertisements that drive this message around health disparities home. It is (or should be) a concern for most of us.  Health outcomes and especially preventative care is driven by health literacy, our attitudes towards health, and our access to the healthcare system.  We should all be working with our families, our communities, and our country to try to make this better.

I am a firm believer that one of the best ways to start to manage cost is to find a viable strategy to get universal coverage.  The costs of emergency care and absenteeism all get passed on to us in one way or another.  And, as the government is the dominant payor of healthcare (Medicare, Medicaid), long term costs are a significant issue for our economy.  If there is a systemic way of improving it, we should seek that out.

So, a cause that is both moral and economical…what more do you need?

Today, more than 50 percent of Americans and 75 percent of Californians without health care coverage are people of color.  Uninsured men, women, and children are far more likely to get sick and forego care simply because they lack coverage.  This is a national disgrace. We spend 2.3 trillion dollars on care in this country. Securing health care coverage for every American is the next great civil rights issue of our time. We can and should achieve universal coverage.

kaiser-ad

Some of the facts highlighted on their new website about disparities include:

  1. Disparities in health and health care impact everyone. African Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Asians, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanics are most affected.

  2. 27% of adults report having no usual source of care. African-American (28%), Hispanic (51%), and Asian (23%) adults are all more likely to report not having a usual doctor.

  3. Uninsured adults are disproportionately, young, and minorities; 82% are between 19-49 years of age, and 41% identified themselves as black, Hispanic, or other.

  4. American Indian and Alaskan Native death rates from sudden infant death syndrome are the highest of any population groups.

  5. Asian Americans have the highest tuberculosis case rates of any racial and ethnic population.

  6. During 1996-2000, Native Hawaiians were 2.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes than non-Hispanic white residents of Hawaii of similar age.

  7. In 2005, African Americans accounted for 18,121 (49%) of the estimated 37,331 new HIV/AIDS diagnoses in a national poll which encompassed 33 states.

  8. 21.9% of U.S. children live in poverty, far and away the worst in the industrialized world. Comparable figures for the Nordic countries are 4.2% and less.

  9. Adults who have not finished high school are almost two times more likely than college graduates to be obese.

To learn more about the topic, you can go to their community of information.

Books / Articles, Healthcare, Leadership, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, Politics, Research, Value Propositions

How Does Optimism Bias Affect Us in Healthcare?

March 20, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

The optimism bias means people are less likely to believe that bad events will happen to them.  They overestimate their likelihood of success.  What are some probable implications in healthcare?

  • Don’t believe they will get cancer or some other disease and not act preventatively.
  • Believe they can improve their cholesterol by exercise and that they will exercise.
  • Don’t believe that the extra calories will add on pounds.
  • Don’t believe smoking will kill them.
  • Don’t believe they need insurance because they won’t get sick or hurt.

glasshalffull1

Is glass half-full or half-empty?

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications

E-Mail No-No’s

March 20, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

While I am sitting on the plane doing hundreds of e-mails (finally catching up), I flipped thru the American Way magazine. It has an article on e-mail etiquette with a list of “The Top 10 E-mail Turnoffs” (March 15, 2009, pg. 16). [BTW – Only a frequent traveler quotes airline magazines.] I think it’s a good list and hits a lot of mistakes that you see. The other key that they talk about in the text is that increased probability of someone misreading your intentions when they don’t have a voice or actions to provide more context. (A problem with text messaging professionally also.)

10 – Get overly cutesy or slang-happy in a professional e-mail.

9 – Skimp on the subject line.

8 – Miss the Mr. or Mrs. mark.

7 – Send it off without running a spell check.

6 – Sprinkle your message with flowery language.

5 – CC: for all to see.

4 – Send an irate, angry, or potentially embarrassing message.

3 – Use your work e-mail for personal time (read: racy)

2 – Go all willy-nilly with the wingdings.

1 – Hit reply all.

[On a related travel note, I need to come up with some “term” for days where I eat each meal in a different state and time zone. Had another “opportunity” to do it this week, but I only hit two time zones.]

Books / Articles, Business Tools, Marketing / Communications, Technology

Negotiating Health Care Is Normal

March 17, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Sure, most of us with employer sponsored care haven’t dealt with this but providers (MD, hospitals, labs) have been negotiating with plans for years.  With over $34B in uncompensated care in 2007 (a number which will certainly go up), your physician would rather get something than nothing.  Talk to them like a professional (not a used car dealer) and see if they can give you a break on the costs.  This article in Patient Money provides some additional thoughts.

Another good article in this area is “Advice To The Jobless On Getting Health Coverage“.

Consumerism, Healthcare, Value Propositions

Using Twitter For Health Care

March 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 1 Comment

Last week, I talked with a reporter about using Twitter for health care.  It can add a new dimension to communications, but I am not sold on it replacing current communications.

Some of my jumbled thoughts on this:

  • I like the one to many concept of Twitter with the opt-in concept (preference-based marketing), but it doesn’t personalize to the individual the way the information is delivered.
  • It definitely provides a stream of consciousness which is interesting.  I see a lot of application for a reality show type of health tools…like Biggest Loser via Twitter.
  • I like the idea of posting a question to a broad audience for quick response – Does anyone have research showing the impact of statins on asthma patients?
  • I don’t see this helping with patient to provider communications.  Do I really want my blood sugar posted to Twitter and sent to my physician from my smart device?  Do I (the physician) really want to see all that real-time data?  No.  What about HIPAA…from what I know Twitter is not meant to contain confidential information.  There are plenty of rules engines which can be used to capture data; look for things outside the norm; and then send an alert.
  • A lot of healthcare information has caveats and requires more than 140 characters to get across the message.  Most clinical things couldn’t be send this way.
  • As with most inbound things (i.e., I have to register or search it out), Twitter feeds get those that know what they are interested in and are active in their health management.  It still doesn’t help to drive action from those that aren’t engaged in their healthcare.
  • I can certainly see it as an alert to information, but since one tip to productivity is to batch things, do I really want them broken out during the day in a bunch of Twitter feeds.  I would rather get a daily synopsis from a website (which might be created by Twitter feeds).

Some things I found when looking on the web about this topic:

Here is a presentation on Twitter (they even have one of my old posts in there…which was a pleasant surprise to me) around healthcare.

So, my general perspective is that there is some value in pushing basic information out, reality show type of healthcare (Twitter surgery), capturing feedback, and developing community, but it’s not a tool for the corporate to individual communications that I typically deal with.

Consumerism, General Thoughts, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications, Social Media, Technology, Value Propositions, Weblogs

BioGenerics, Text Analysis, and Transparency

March 16, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Here are a couple of blog posts from other blogs worth reading:

  • David Williams on the “Folly of BioGenerics” which talks about why they won’t be just like generic drugs.
  • James Taylor on Text Analysis which if ever figured out would be very helpful in taking inbound e-mails, letters, and call center notes and using them for customer relationship management.
  • Gilles Frydman on “Opaque Inc.” and how difficult it is to understand the US healthcare system.
Healthcare, Managed Care, Marketing / Communications, PBM / Pharmacy, Politics, Research, Value Propositions, Weblogs

Why Did The PBMs Get Into Specialty?

March 14, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 4 Comments

Thanks for all the questions lately.  I love to answer them (although I get backlogged sometimes with the real job).

Someone asked me why the PBMs got into specialty pharmacy over the past 5+ years.

  • Commoditization
  • Money
  • Opportunity

As the traditional PBM business continued to get squeezed and “transparency” was being pushed, there was a fear of commoditization.  That fear caused the PBMs to look more aggressively at what companies like CVS had been doing in the specialty pharmacy world.

The PBMs have typically been very financially motivated.  If you look at the basics, there is clear financial opportunity.

  • The value of an average specialty script is $1,200+ versus $80 for a normal script.
  • The majority of the scripts traditionally were filled outside the pharmacy network on the medical side creating lots of opportunity for cost management (and therefore spread).
  • Some specialty drugs have limited distribution meaning that you can be the only pharmacy (or one of a few) that stock the drug driving immediate marketshare.

Finally, to a lesser extent, I believe specialty created an opportunity for them to showcase more “care management” types of activities.  They could work more actively with the patient (member) to save them money and help them deal with their chronic condition.

Healthcare, PBM / Pharmacy, Value Propositions

Walgreen’s vs. CVS PBM Ownership

March 13, 2009 by George Van Antwerp 0 Comments

Another question I got yesterday was on retailers (specifically Walgreen’s versus CVS) owning PBMs.  The question was since they make so much money on foot traffic and selling non-pharmacy items why would they want to be in the PBM business.  DATA!

They both have similar fundamental concepts which are aggregating patient touchpoints – PBM, Clinic, Retail, Specialty.  If they can figure out how to aggregate and mine the data to better serve the patients and the plan sponsors, they can be a key influencer in driving health outcomes.  

The follow on question was what’s different.  Without getting into behind the scenes, the one thing that I think is publicly different is the CVS ExtraCare program.  They have a loyalty program that gives them visibility into the non-medical behavior of members.  Why is that important?  From a PBM perspective, it’s important because they can make sure to focus on channel optimization.  By that I mean that people that go to the pharmacy and shop at a CVS are people they want to keep in the stores.  But, patients that simply pick up prescriptions are probably people they want to move to mail.  Mail order is a lower cost fulfillment option for them and if those consumers aren’t buying other stuff, then they should look to convert them to mail.

Consumerism, Healthcare, Marketing / Communications, PBM / Pharmacy, Value Propositions
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