House Hearing, Legislation Emphasize PBM Transparency

  • May 25, 2023

    During a May 23 hearing held by the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, both Republican and Democratic representatives — as well as the witnesses — seemed to agree that PBM reforms are needed. However, a consensus wasn’t clear on what policies are best suited to fix problems with the current pharmacy benefits landscape, other than mandating increased transparency into how PBMs do business.

    Just one day after the hearing, another House panel — the Energy and Commerce Committee — advanced the Promoting Access to Treatments and Increasing Extremely Needed Transparency (PATIENT) Act of 2023, which would require PBMs to annually report to employer plan sponsors a host of information about prescription drug spending, utilization, acquisition costs, rebates and more. Specific to the Medicaid program, the legislation would also ban spread pricing, which occurs when PBMs pay pharmacies dispensing a drug less than what they charge payers and pocket the difference. The Biden administration on May 23 proposed a regulation that targets spread pricing in Medicaid, but it does not ban the practice.

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  • Leslie Small

    Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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