Fixing the Pharmacy Conundrum

Risk & Insurance and Healthcare Solutions convene a pharmacy benefit management roundtable discussion over breakfast in Atlanta.

As workers' compensation insurance rates rise precipitously, risk managers and claims leaders across the country are looking for answers with an increasing sense of urgency.

The cost of getting injured workers back to work, hampered by a national pain killer medication epidemic, has gotten the attention of more and more business executives and government officials.

Participating in the roundtable were Danielle Lisenbey, the CEO of Atlanta-based TPA Broadspire, Dave Smith, divisional vice president, risk management for Family Dollar Stores, Stephen Festa, senior vice president and chief claims officer for Reno-based EMPLOYERS insurance company and David George, the CEO of Healthcare Solutions.

The two-hour panel was moderated by Dan Reynolds, the editor-in-chief of Risk & Insurance.

As those in attendance expressed their views over the two-hour breakfast meeting, several dynamics emerged as themes. One was that the landscape for managing this risk is in constant flux, as different stakeholders move either to contain costs or identify new revenue streams.

The other was that those companies that seek to contain costs and provide a better health outcome for injured workers must improve the focus of their communication efforts, as various key states and the federal government consider legislation to manage a pharmaceutical painkiller epidemic that now claims more lives from overdoses on an annual basis than either heroin or cocaine use.

According to a study completed by the CDC, "One person is dying every 19 minutes because of this epidemic, so it is rightfully getting a lot of focus, a lot of press," EMPLOYERS' Stephen Festa said.

Indeed, the Wall Street Journal's Timothy Martin reported on March 10 that a painkiller epidemic that had been ruining lives in the South and East has now blindsided health care and law enforcement officials in the West.

"We're just in the beginning stages of grasping the full magnitude of this issue," Elisha Figueroa, Idaho's drug-policy administrator, was quoted as saying in that story.

Originally posted here:
Fixing the Pharmacy Conundrum