Specialty SOS - For the second year in a row, specialty medications are seen as the leading driver of prescription drug costs, and 83 percent of plan sponsors support quick legislative action to bring generic versions of specialty drugs to market. More than 75 percent of plan sponsors have found some relief through reduced prices by billing these drugs under the pharmacy benefit instead of the medical benefit. Mail order improves adherence - Seventy percent of plan sponsors believe that mail-order pharmacies help members stick to essential drug therapies and nearly half believe that mail-order pharmacists do a better job at identifying adherence problems. Increased medication adherence results in better health outcomes and lower overall healthcare costs. For example, a recent Medco study found that annual healthcare costs for hypertensive patients using mail order saw a $700 per-patient reduction due to increased adherence to prescribed drug therapy. Low-cost retail generics programs fall short - While there is unanimous agreement that generics provide significant cost savings, 62 percent of respondents believe that the much-publicized $4 generics programs at retail pharmacies are merely designed to increase foot traffic, and represent only a limited number of available generic drugs. Pharmacogenomics goes mainstream - More than 60 percent of plan sponsors believe that genetic testing should become a routine part of health care, with larger companies leading the trend in covering these tests - nearly half provide coverage while only 14 percent of smaller companies do.

Source: medco