Collaboration bringing easier pathway for those who need specialty medication
DELAWARE – Two companies are working together to reach the goal of transforming the specialty pharmacy experience, in order to help patients who need life saving drugs.
“We are entering a new chapter coming out of stealth mode and really grateful for Highmark to be able to amplify the news together,”Joe Cardosi, founder and CEO of Free Market Health.
Highmark Incorporated and Free Market Health, a healthcare technology company, want to make it easier for Highmark members to get their specialty medication. Cardosi said the channel to get people these drugs can be challenging and often confusing, ultimately leading to delays in care.
“Where do I send this? And, where should I send my patient? Because it’s not the same as you just getting a script, going home and walking down the corner drug store, it’s you go home and you wait to hear from somebody,” Sarah Marche, Senior Vice President of Pharmacy Services for Highmark Inc., said.
To solve that issue, they will be using Free Market’s platform to match patients to the right pharmacy.
“We know there’s a lot of specialty pharmacies out there and many of those pharmacies are not able to service our members and patients because of benefit designs or contractual limitations,” Marche said.
This will also ensure cost competitiveness for specialty drugs, especially because health experts said specialty medications are contributing to the overall rise in health care costs
“Specialty pharmacy medications can range from about a thousand dollars a month in the pure cost of the drug, up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a month depending on the drug,” Marche said. “In the last couple of years, we’ve actually had the first of the few drugs that have hit the million dollar mark.”
They’ve already launched this program for a subset of patients in their oncology space and they are excited to grow even more.
We are told Monday they rolled out this program in some additional areas, including for chronic inflammatory conditions. They have plans of continuing to expand by drug category until they have reached all the drugs that they think fit into the program.
