Could Government Negotiated Prices Curtail Access? PBMs And Potential Perverse Incentives Dominate First Medicare Listening Session

 
• By Sarah Karlin-Smith
  
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Patients and advocacy groups tell Medicare they want lower cost drugs but are concerned that if government negotiations lower list prices, rebate-focused PBMs may preference higher list-price competitors. 

CMS patient listening meena
CMS deputy administrator Meena Seshamani opened the listening session. • Source: screenshot

Patients and patient advocates raised a potentially concerning paradox at the first Medicare public listening session on the drugs that will be subject to US government price negotiations under the new Inflation Reduction Act – that the government’s ability to get lower list prices for selected drugs might lead pharmacy benefits managers to make the medications more inaccessible to patients.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid kicked off the first of 10 days of listening sessions 30 October with public...

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