Pharmaceutical Strategies Group, LLC Announces New Suite of Services Aimed at Improving Specialty Pharmacy Management …

PLANO, TX--(Marketwire -06/07/12)- Today, Pharmaceutical Strategies Group, LLC ("PSG"), America's largest independent pharmacy benefits consulting and solutions firm, announced the immediate availability of a suite of Specialty Pharmacy Management Services featuring their RxDiagnostic for Specialty service, enabling large employers, health systems, managed care organizations and Taft-Hartley Funds/Unions to develop and implement a comprehensive specialty pharmacy management strategy to address their rapidly growing specialty drug spend. Plan sponsors are often resource-challenged and rely on specialty pharmacies or their medical and PBM vendors for information and guidance on specialty pharmacy management. The RxDiagnostic for Specialty and downstream solutions provide critical information and guidance as well as services not readily available in the marketplace, until now. Plan design, vendor performance, clinical management, reimbursement management, and site-of-care management are independently analyzed, reviewed, and benchmarked against best practices using sophisticated healthcare analytics.

The unique feature of the diagnostic is the integrated performance analysis using both pharmacy and medical data. With 50% or more of the specialty drug spend falling into the medical benefit, utilizing proven data integration and analytics tools are critical to understanding performance and creating solutions. PSG utilizes their data integration/healthcare information analytics tool and clinical business intelligence engine, Artemetrx(SM), to support the analytics and opportunity targeting completed for clients. "We are excited to offer a solution that addresses the marketplace need for tools to benchmark and assess the effectiveness of specialty pharmacy programs across the continuum of care. These new services were developed to address a significant need of our clients and we are eager to provide them with greater insights, strategies, and solutions," says Dave Borden, CEO of PSG. The RxDiagnostic for Specialty tool frequently identifies potential savings of 15% or more for specialty drugs covered under the medical benefit, spanning across reimbursement, clinical care, and site of care management opportunities.

The RxDiagnostic for Specialty SolutionExample analytics included in the RxDiagnostic for Specialty solution include: an in-depth analysis and benchmark of the current cost sharing design for specialty drugs by distribution site; a review of the medication adherence rates by product and therapy class; a detailed benchmarking review of existing contract language, terms and definitions; a complete assessment of the existing suite of utilization management programs; evaluation and benchmarking of current spend characteristics, categorized by therapy class and diagnosis; analysis of specialty trend under the pharmacy and medical benefit over previous years by utilization, price and mix and data evaluation of critical operational standards for the specialty vendors.

In addition, availability of the medical data allows PSG experts to harness the power of integrated data to assess whether the diagnoses and risk profiles of patients that use specialty medications are consistent with evidence-based clinical guidelines and allows for identification of site of care opportunities. "Our RxDiagnostic techniques identify patients who are candidates for moving their infusion care from expensive outpatient hospital settings to lower cost sites of care, frequently saving the plan sponsor more than $10,000 per infusion, which can sum to more than $100,000 in annualized savings for each patient," says Brenda Motheral, President of Artemetrx(SM).

About Pharmaceutical Strategies GroupPharmaceutical Strategies Group (PSG) is the largest independent pharmacy benefit consulting firm in the country. Their clients include health plan sponsors, such as, Taft-Hartley Unions, employers, health plans, and hospitals/health systems. PSG designs customized pharmacy benefit management and supply chain solutions that enable clients to gain immediate control over pharmacy costs while improving health outcomes. PSG's seasoned professionals, coupled with state-of-the-art systems technology, support key services including: pharmacy program strategy and diagnostics, auditing, contract development, specialty and PBM procurement, clinical support, custom reporting and analytics, and integrated data solutions powered by Artemetrx(SM).

At the core of PSG's Artemetrx(SM) service offering is a robust proprietary data aggregation engine that combines behavioral, medical, dental, vision, lab, and prescription drug data to provide a comprehensive view of health-related utilization and expenditures. This clinical business intelligence engine transforms the standard health data into actionable information that is accessible through a Web-based decision support tool. In addition, Artemetrx(SM) offers a suite of clinical intervention programs that leverage the integrated data to improve care and control costs. These programs range from pharmacy-centric programs to population health programs.

PSG's services also include comprehensive health system pharmacy solutions, 340B program design, network contracting and administration, pharmacy operations consulting, wholesaler and GPO strategies, clinical and formulary program design, PBM insource/outsource strategy, and auditing services. http://www.psgconsults.com

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Pharmaceutical Strategies Group, LLC Announces New Suite of Services Aimed at Improving Specialty Pharmacy Management ...