Ban on Referenced Based Drug Pricing

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA

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A Medicare and CMS Three-Sixty

[By Staff Reporters]rboa_16

According to Jane Zhang and Vanessa Fuhrmans of the Wall Street Journal, on January 10, 2009, the last days of the Bush administration saw a proposed ban that allows private insurers to charge Medicare beneficiaries stiff penalties if they choose brand-name drugs instead of cheaper generic drugs.

Referenced Based Pricing

Under reference-based drug pricing, the penalty for insisting on a brand-name drug often amounts to the price difference between the drug and the generic version, plus a copayment. In some cases, that leaves patients paying the full price of the brand-name drug. In contrast, buyers of brand-name drugs when there is no generic equivalent are charged just a copayment. Nearly 10% of drug plans used the pricing technique to steer beneficiaries to lower-cost generics www.HealthDictionarySeries.com 

CMS Announcement

Of course, the announcement from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services came after lawmakers and patient advocates protested that reference-based pricing made it difficult for consumers to calculate drug costs.

CMS Renouncement

But, the agency reversed itself 360 degrees this week, proposing to ban such pricing for the 2010 drug plans. The WSJ reported that complicated formulas made it “very difficult to accurately convey the extent of expected out-of-pocket spending” for prescription drugs. And, “The basis for this decision is our belief that reference-based pricing may be inherently misleading to beneficiaries and inconsistent with our goal of improving transparency.”

The Pfizer-Wyeth Drug Deal

Following the ban, investors appeared skeptical about the just announced Pfizer-Wyeth drug deal. Pfizer will pay $68 billion for Wyeth, which is the biggest in the drug sector since 2000. The merger comes as Pfizer faces the difficult hurdle of dealing with patent expirations for some of its biggest drugs, including its cholesterol-lowering Lipitor, which makes up about 25% of the company’s overall sales.

Assessment

The ban is part of CMS’s criteria for prescription-drug plans that insurers will offer for 2010. The criteria won’t be final until March, leaving a narrow window for the Obama administration to change them.

Conclusion

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Filed under: "Doctors Only", Drugs and Pharma, Ethics, Managed Care, Research & Development | Tagged: , , , | 7 Comments »

About Hiperwall.com

Posted on January 30, 2009 by Dr. David Edward Marcinko MBA

Cool New Video Wall Creations – for Medicine?

Staff Reporters56371220

Hiperwall software enables anyone to build a scalable, high performance video wall from ordinary computers, monitors and an ethernet network.

Many Content Types

Hiperwall allows viewing in any combination of content types:

 

  • Ordinary graphic images
  • Extremely large graphic images, up to 1 gigabyte or larger
  • Digital movies, including standard and HDTV format
  • Streaming content from cameras and other live sources
  • Live “sender” feeds that let a room full of people view the constantly changing screen displays of one or more computers

Hiperwall has the ability to resize and relocate each content object anywhere on the video wall, within a single monitor or across multiple monitors. It is as easy as moving and resizing windows on the desktop of your personal computer. Hiperwall also provides advanced capabilities like zoom, rotation, shading and transparency, enabling users to examine content with increased flexibility and effectiveness. It is based on technology originally developed by researchers from the University of California at Irvine, and is now available for use by anyone www.Hiperwall.com

Assessment

Now, what does this all have to do with healthcare? Well, think digital radiology, cardiology, PET, CT and MRI scans, and others graphically intensive specialties? For example, an early client was Stanford University Medical School and Samsung Electronics. Still, with few other clients and only a hand-full of employees, consider overall costs, viability and follow-up support. Nevertheless, on January 24, 2009 – Information Week named the company as the “Startup-of-the-Week.”

Conclusion

And so, your thoughts and comments on this Medical Executive-Post are appreciated; especially from you daring early-adopters, out there! Think PACS [picture archiving and communication systems].

Speaker: If you need a moderator or speaker for an upcoming event, Dr. David E. Marcinko; MBA – Publisher-in-Chief of the Executive-Post – is available for seminar or speaking engagements. Contact: MarcinkoAdvisors@msn.com  or Bio: www.stpub.com/pubs/authors/MARCINKO.htm

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