Federal Daily - March 12, 2010
Industry Group Says Feds Content With FEHBP Drug Benefits
As Congress continues to debate ways to rein in drug costs associated with the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, an industry group that represents pharmacy benefits managers has pushed back, saying their survey of federal workers indicates beneficiaries are happy with their current prescription drug coverage.
According to the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, 83 percent of respondents to a survey of 305 civilian federal employees in the Washington, D.C., area said they were satisfied with the FEHBP prescription drug program.
The group’s survey was done in response to the FEHBP Prescription Drug Integrity, Transparency, and Cost Savings Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Stephen Lynch, D-Mass, that would institute greater oversight of FEHBP pharmacy benefit managers and prohibit companies that own both retail drugstores and a PBM from doing business with FEHBP carriers.
Currently, PBMs negotiate drug prices with manufacturers, which provide PBMs with rebates and discounts. However, federal labor officials and others who argue for PBM reform say those discounts do not always get passed on to FEHBP participants.
However, according to PCMA President and CEO Mark Merritt, the new survey shows that feds like things the way they are. “These new data clearly show that politicians supporting legislation to change FEHBP’s pharmacy benefit could be walking into a political minefield,” said Merritt. “By lopsided margins, federal workers like their prescription drug benefits [and] like the way OPM administers FEHBP.”
To see more, go to: www.pcmanet.org/new-survey-three-in-four-enrollees-oppose-legislation-to-change-fehbp.
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VA Struggles to Meet Demand for Substance Abuse Treatment
The Department of Veterans Affairs faces an uphill battle to meet the high demand for treatment of substance use disorders due to a shortage of bed space and trained staff to provide those services, according to a new report.
The findings were detailed in a report from the Government Accountability Office, which looked at the challenges VA’s health care facilities encounter in trying to provide vets with treatments for alcohol abuse and drug addiction.
Approximately 420,000 of the more than 5 million vets receiving health care from VA in Fiscal Year 2009 had SUD diagnoses, according VA estimates in the report released March 10. In addition to older vets, those at risk also include vets recently returned from military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan who turn to drugs or alcohol to cope with the stress of deployment, and later, of readjustment to civilian life.
GAO focused on three SUD problem areas: providing adequate access to services, meeting veterans’ exact treatment needs, and assessing the effectiveness of care.
According to the report, VA simply does not have the capacity to meet demand, and some VA medical centers have faced challenges in hiring enough staff to satisfy vets’ need for the services. It also can be hard for vets to access VA residential programs, because beds in those programs are not always immediately available.
VA facilities also have difficulty in offering the appropriate treatments. Certain pharmaco-therapies are underused because staff are not properly trained to use them, and instruction in their use can be time-intensive for both providers and trainers. VA officials also noted that it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of treatments because of a lack of information about vets after they are discharged.
To address the issue, VA has recently begun a number of national efforts to increase access to SUD services, promote evidence-based treatments, assess SUD services and monitor treatment effectiveness, GAO said.
To see more, go to: www.gao.gov/new.items/d10294r.pdf.
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