Ohio Medicaid is telling its five managed care plans to sever their contracts with two pharmacy benefits managers, and to work up new deals by the beginning of the year.
, Ohio Medicaid director Barbara Sears says they must stop working with CVS Caremark and Optum, which are using a 鈥渟pread pricing鈥� model. Sears says the managed care plans have until January 1 to work out deals with PBMs that will agree to a pass through model, where the plans pay the PBMs鈥� fees. Sears says that model will be more transparent and won鈥檛 cost taxpayers extra money. A report commissioned by Ohio Medicaid showed the spread between what the state paid the PBMs and what they paid pharmacies added up to $224 million last year, which the state initially declined to say was a good or bad deal. A court battle continues over the release of that report, which the PBMs say contains trade secrets.
Copyright 2018
