What is a Mail Order Pharmacy (Home Delivery Pharmacy)?

My most popular post ever is “What is a PBM?” which made me think that this is probably a relevant post for the average healthcare consumer.  And, given the historical push to mail combined with the current economy, you can expect mail order pharmacy (or home delivery pharmacy) along with 90-day retail pharmacy to be [...]

Are Involved Patients More Compliant?

This is a study from a few years ago from Harris Interactive and BCG that I found on the BioPlus website.  If I am interpreting it right, it would imply that those that are most involved in their healthcare are most likely to be non-compliant.  It doesn’t seem logical, but perhaps those are the people [...]

Would You Pay $100 To Be Told To Take Your Rx?

We know adherence is a serious issue that drives healthcare costs.  And, as I have talked about a little here and a lot with many of our pharmacy clients, it’s not a simple issue.  People aren’t adherent for a variety of reasons - cost, side effects, health literacy, or simply just forgetting (among others).
There are [...]

Dental Experience

I am a big believer in the fact that the experience matters for healthcare.  From my architecture days, this means physical space, sequence of events, bedside manner of the staff, clarity of communications, and processing of the claim (at the simplest level).  Everything that the patient experiences as associated with an event drives their satisfaction.
So, [...]

Genetic Art

I was reading about this company DNA 11 the other day, and I found it a pretty cool concept. They take your DNA and make it into art focusing on the 1% that is unique. According to the article in American Way magazine, prices ranged from $390 to $1,200 with 25 color options [...]

LinkedIn Question On HealthComm

I think it was earlier this year when LinkedIn rolled out a new feature called questions which allows you to pose questions to LinkedIn users and get answers. I continue to like this tool, and it has been interesting to watch it evolve from a “startup” (when I joined there were less than 2M [...]

Tier Zero

Frank Koronkiewicz, the Director of Pharmacy, at Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania (BCNEPA) just launched a new plan where people can get 65 different generics focused on chronic diseases at no copay AND without any premium.  It’s called Tier Zero.

Frank has always been a progressive Director of Pharmacy.  We worked on several programs together at [...]

Three Sad Healthcare Stories

First, I think this is a very disappointing article about workplace violence in the healthcare industry.  I certainly could believe (unfortunately) in the verbal violence since people are very emotional about their healthcare and often stressed over the financial implications and unintuitive processes.  But, this story has some scary statistics which are an issue at [...]

Why People Choose Mail Order Pharmacy?

I was looking for something else in the Express Scripts Drug Trend Report 2005 when I came across this study referenced on page 209. I should have remembered since I wrote this section (yes I was a contributor see page 332). This is a Morgan Stanley study which talks about why people choose [...]

Sell Your Captive PBM - Why?

I was a little surprised by the quote from Lisa Gill from JPMorgan Chase about why health plans should sell their in-house PBMs (Pharmacy Benefit Management):
“I think it makes a lot of sense for PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers] to be sold or spun off as a stand-alone business. The only time it will make sense [...]

A Few Blog Entries About The Think Different Event

We wrapped up the road show this week in Hartford and NY.  I missed both events to be at client meetings on the west coast (and now down south).  But, one of the presenters and someone who was in the audience posted entries on their blogs about the event:

James Taylor on his blog Smart Enough [...]

The Automated Sprint Reply

As a reply to my e-mail (see my last posting), here is what I got.  Now let’s see how long it takes to get a real reply.

Thank you for taking the time to write.  To truly revolutionize wireless, we need your input. It’s people like you who are using our services everyday that can provide [...]

Giving Out Your CEO’s E-mail

From the perspective of soliciting feedback, how many companies post their CEO’s or anybody’s real e-mail these days? Sometimes you can’t even find a number to call on the website. You simply get some generic form to fill out and get feedback. You sent it into the black hole and wonder if [...]

More On Silverlink’s Think Different Event

I am now up in Minneapolis at our 4th Think Different event on how to engage the healthcare consumer.  I talked about the first few speakers the other day, and I finally had a chance to hear the other speakers present.  This week, I had the chance to listen to  James Taylor (of Smart (enough) [...]

Wisdom Of The Crowd – Socializing Wellness

You probably caught the articles last year about how obesity seemed to spread throughout social networks. Now, in an article in the Washington Post (5/27/08), they talk about another example of research showing that smoking is similarly affected by social networks. Theoretically, this research could have significant implications for using social media (i.e., [...]

NCPA Survey on Adherence

I have been talking a lot about adherence lately (or lack of). A friend sent me the results of a survey of 1,000 adults by NCPA (National Community Pharmacy Association) from October 2006. This is now the 3rd study I have read this week with different results. Of course, they all used [...]

PBM Satisfaction Survey

It should be out soon, and it will be interesting to see the data. The WilsonRx PBM Satisfaction Survey is the only (I think) independent survey done of the industry. [Although I never remember paying attention to it at Express Scripts.] From what I know, they seem to get a good sample [...]

The Doctor Will See You…IF You Promised Not To Critique Them

It takes a lot for me to get offended, but I find this offensive.  The WSJ Blog mentioned it this morning, and when I clicked through the links, it seems like a total disconnect with the technology world.
Medical Justice Inc. has put together a contract physicians can ask their patients to sign. In it, patients [...]

Pavlovian Response To Sound

We recently got a new dog (a Tibetan Terrier), and we decided to start training the dog using the clicker method.  I kiddingly commented that it would be great to have something like this to train people.  Apparently there already is such a method, and it can be used as a teaching method for autistic [...]

Hall of Shame - Customer Service

On the positive side, there were no healthcare companies that “won” this “competition”.  Winning being that you were rated as having poor customer service the highest percentage of times.  (On the flipside, very few were included.)  [full rankings here]
“We’ve seen a fall in customer service as we’ve gone into a recession,” said Richard D. Hanks, [...]

American Cancer Society on YouTube

I think it’s interesting to see how the American Cancer Society is using YouTube to create a call to action both around the election, the uninsured, and other issues.

Our First Think Different Event

Today was our first Think Different event in Boston. This is a road show we are doing around our new positioning and how health care companies need to get outside the box to improve the effectiveness of their communications. It has four external speakers plus our CEO.
[Spoiler Alert: If you are attending an [...]

Groups And Microsegments

When I was listening to Kinney Zalesne (Microtrends author) present this morning at our Think Different event, there were several things that crossed my mind:

Which micro-trends am I part of?

How much micro-targeting is too much?

Will consumers self-identify into groups?

Without going back to the whole book, I can think of several micro-trends with which I associate:

Marathoning
Stay-at-home [...]

Express Scripts Settlement on Statin Switches

I don’t know the insider details, but I am certainly familiar with the original program in 2005/2006 which targeted users of 3rd tier branded cholesterol (statin) drugs to get them to move to a lower cost agent which could either be a brand or generic drug on formulary (obviously wanting it to be the generic).
Apparently [...]

Missing The First Step

When I saw Forrester’s data around Personal Health Records (PHRs), it reminded me of one of the facts we struggled with around increasing mail order utilization…most people didn’t know what it was or whether they had it as a benefit.  (From their Q2 - 2007 Social Technographics Online Healthcare Survey)

So, given all the buzz about [...]

Silverlink HealthComm Behavioral Index

Although this new index was released in a story a few weeks ago, the official press release should be out this morning. It has been interesting to watch this transform from a concept to an initial survey with some data.
What is it? The Healthcomm Behavior Index is a quarterly survey of 1,000+ commercially insured [...]

Literacy and Consumer Empowerment

A few of the highlights from external speakers at the Spring client event for Medco included:
Helen Osborne talking about the “Prescription for Savings: Using Health Literacy Principles in Your Communications.”

Finding the right words for the best reasons
Not about dumbing down but about smartening up
Health literacy is a shared responsibility between patients and providers and each [...]

Pharmacy Satisfaction Did You Knows

PharmacySatisfaction.com puts out a weekly factoid. They are very interesting and make some great points. I have talked about it before, but here is an updated list with the new factoids from 2008.

Independent drug stores continue to score highest in customer satisfaction, followed by food stores, clinics, and chain and mass merchandise pharmacies, [...]

Are You Doing Enough To Drive Generics?

From the Express Scripts Outcomes event a few weeks ago, here is an estimate of all the money left on the table by not increasing your generic fill rate in certain key categories.  Are you doing enough?

Utilization management programs - step therapy, prior authorization, quantity level limits?
Formulary coverage?
Plan design incentives?
Pharmacy incentives?
eRx messaging?
Web tools?
Patient communications?
Patient incentives?
Driving [...]

Incentives and Communications

Everybody looking at the healthcare system understands that incentives and alignment of goals is a critical component for successful change.

Providers need to be motivated to focus on wellness and prevention.
Individuals need to be motivated to care about the cost of care and to act in a healthy manner.
Pharmacists need to be motivated to take the [...]