Centene shells out $143M to settle PBM disputes in Ohio
“Legislators and regulators are increasingly targeting pharmacy benefit managers, middlemen that negotiate discounts with drug suppliers and administer pharmacy networks for health plans, to drive down rising pharmaceutical costs. Many of the nation’s largest PBMs have been accused of hiding behind complex, opaque contracts with government agencies,” reports Rebecca Pifer in Healthcare Dive.
“Those concerns have only heightened as the largest PBMs merge with payers, creating what many antitrust advocates see as a conflict of interest. The three biggest PBMs in the nation CVS Caremark, OptumRx and Express Scripts control more than 70% of the multibillion-dollar marketplace, and are owned by CVS Health (which owns Aetna), UnitedHealth Group.”
