Member Insights by NFP
Soaring prescription drug prices stand out as the fastest growing costs for all employer health plans, and remain one of the most difficult to manage. Specialty drug costs alone are expected to be 50% of the total pharmacy spend for employers in the coming years. If your company is looking for a way to provide your employees with improved healthcare benefits while also reducing the impact rising healthcare costs and prescription drug prices have on your benefit plans and business, NFP’s Rx Solutions can help.
With a focus on helping our clients manage the challenge of rising prescription drug costs, our pharmacy consulting practice, Rx Solutions, was one of NFP’s most impactful platforms for our clients in 2019. Since its inception in 2017, Rx Solutions has helped transition more than 100 self-funded employer groups to the Rx Solutions Coalition, which allows employers to optimize purchasing power with access to coalition-based pricing. Rx Solutions also provides our clients with the tools necessary to address the overall healthcare benefit package, which is an integral component to any businesses’ most important asset, their people.
Cutting costs doesn’t mean we skimp on the important things, like your employees’ health and well-being. NFP’s Rx Solutions Consulting Services provides comprehensive Rx consulting, clinical administration and benefit design recommendations. We can provide meaningful improvements to the contract management process and can materially reduce costs but it isn’t only about that, our Rx Solutions Consulting Service can improve employer health plan impact and delivery.
The Rx Solutions Impact
Unmanaged employer pharmacy costs can cost your company as much as 200% the cost of managed plans. Rx Solutions, including both Coalition and traditional consulting business, is providing savings of more than 20% to self-insured employers managed by NFP. When you include their clinical programs, NFP clients can save an additional 10% over their existing solutions. These results are great news for our clients, but it keeps getting better. With the Rx Solutions Coalition we are all in this together. As more clients utilize the Rx Solutions Coalition, our leverage with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) grows. We are using this leverage to drive savings even higher for our clients and their employees.
Yes, WE are all in this together
Consider the work the Rx Solutions team has done for NFP’s own prescription plan. Since NFP transitioned our own prescription benefit to the Rx Solutions Express Scripts Coalition contract and implemented their clinical solutions, wehave saved over $3.2 million, more than 32.1% of our prescription budget. Equally as important, NFP employees and their families also benefit with access to the prescriptions they need at lower out-of-pocket costs.
This firsthand experience, together with our demonstrated commitment to solutions that support the needs of our own employees, clearly illustrates that we believe in the solutions we offer to our valued clients. You will read in our Chamber of Commerce profile but this is proof of it, NFP is about teamwork and partnerships, the Rx Solutions Coalition is partnership in action. We believe in Rx Solutions and are using it ourselves; there is no better testimonial than that.
Real Results from the Rx Solutions Team
Recently a leading consumer goods/appliance manufacturer (13,000 employees in North America and 55,000 globally) was struggling to find ways to lower benefits costs without creating a competitive disadvantage. NFP’s team worked with our Rx Solutions colleagues to conduct an analysis of the company’s drug spend and utilization over the most recent 12 months and audited their current pharmacy benefits.
The result from the study was that NFP projected annual savings of $750,000 through wholesale pricing on the existing consultant contract.
The program also included a specialty copay assistance program, which requires employees to work with an Rx Solutions pharmacist to determine if specialty drugs are eligible for coupons offered by the manufacturers. Those specialty drug coupons reduced the cost to the company by 20% and lowered copays for employees.
On one particular specialty drug, that coupon savings was $1000 per month, per employee.
In the first year of implementing the NFP recommended changes to the health plan the company saved $1.55 million ($800,000 more than projected) and now, in their second year will save almost $2.2 million.
The company has realized significant savings, preserved critical benefits for employees while lowering their out-of-pocket costs and demonstrated a commitment to employee well-being that enhanced retention.
Engaging the Rx Solutions Team
As prescription drug costs trend higher, Rx Solutions is an opportunity to realize meaningful savings and the peace of mind of knowing their pharmacy management is in good hands. Additionally, it is a way to create an additional benefit for your employees with their own reduced out-of-pocket costs. If you would like to learn more about this innovative program or access the potential annual realizable savings, please reach out to NFP Executive Benefits Senior Vice President, Vince Jenkins (Vince.Jenkins@nfp.com)