In honor of World Hemophilia Day, Magellan Rx Management has released results from the first six months of its hemophilia management program launched in collaboration with Health New England, a non-profit health plan serving the commercial, Medicaid and Medicare markets.

Hemophilia is a rare genetic bleeding disorder, for which treatment is expensive and difficult to manage. The average annual cost per member with severe hemophilia can exceed $250,000, and may be upward of $1 million for members who have developed inhibitors. Personalized care programs for patients with hemophilia aim to reduce unnecessary costs while improving the overall quality of care.

“As April 17 is World Hemophilia Day, we’re excited to bring hemophilia care into the spotlight and highlight the early results achieved with Health New England through our hemophilia management program,” said Haita Makanji, vice president, clinical specialty solutions at Magellan Rx Management. “Through personalized interventions, we’re able to better determine the individual member needs and coordinate across key stakeholders to deliver a truly personalized care program that ensures members with hemophilia receive best-in-class care and achieve optimal outcomes.”

Since launching the hemophilia management program in August 2017, Magellan Rx Management and Health New England have standardized care across various stakeholders without compromising patient outcomes, resulting in:

• Optimized doses through assay management or pharmacokinetic (PK) testing in 50 percent of members
• Reduced average assay dispensed in prophylaxis patients from 5 percent to 1 percent, reducing the potential for waste
• No breakthrough bleeding reported from members who had a dose reduction

“In the past eight months of collaboration with Magellan, we’ve achieved our goals of ensuring high quality of care for members with hemophilia while minimizing potential waste created through excess dispensing and inappropriate dosing,” said Andrew J. Colby, R.Ph, MBA, Health New England’s pharmacy director. “By announcing our hemophilia management program results on World Hemophilia Day, we hope to raise the profile of this condition and look to continue to make strides in standardizing best treatment practices to benefit members across the country.”

The hemophilia management program aims to enhance overall quality and personalization of hemophilia care by coordinating with prescribers, members and pharmacies while reducing unnecessary costs. Key elements include:

• Helping payers analyze information related to member bleed history and hemophilia treatment patterns.
• Standardizing dispensing and optimal dose protocols to promote best practices and improve transparency in hemophilia care.
• Updating policies to encourage individualized treatment regimens based on member-specific metabolic factors.

Magellan’s Haita Makanji, vice president, clinical specialty solutions, was featured in Managed Healthcare Executive this week, discussing some ground breaking new gene therapies that are available for hemophilia sufferers. These therapies promise the potential of fewer infusions and bleeding episodes.

You can read the complete article at Managed Healthcare Executive by clicking here.

Caring is at the heart of Magellan’s culture. Whether it’s approving grant applications through the Magellan Cares Foundation, utilizing paid volunteer time off (VTO) hours or matching financial gifts, this is continually demonstrated by our associates across the country. Learn more about the Magellan Cares Foundation by visiting our webpage, which includes information about how organizations can apply for grants, or learn more from our associates first-hand in this video.

“We are often asked in interviews what our most memorable experience has been as a pharmacist,” said Marc. “I used to have a go-to story I thought was amazing, but now that story has been replaced.”
Marc Ream
Clinical Pharmacist, Magellan Rx

This month, we’re celebrating our amazing pharmacists and the work they do to impact members at virtually every point along the patient-care continuum. Today we’re sharing a story from clinical pharmacist Marc Ream, who partnered with the commercial pharmacy team to go above and beyond the call of duty for a family in need.

Although he did not know it then, when Marc Ream took a call late on a Friday afternoon, he was about to experience what would become the most rewarding moment in his career as a pharmacist.

The call came from a mother with an urgent request for an oncology drug approval for her 10-year-old daughter, Jane.* Jane, who lives with Leukemia, needed a specific medication that is relatively rare and not easily accessible. The family was leaving on their long-awaited vacation the next day, so they needed the medication that same day. Marc quickly realized that  getting this medication to the member quickly would require collaboration with the prescribing oncologist, as well as with multiple parties including the health plan, account managers, technicians, pharmacists, physicians and the dispensing pharmacy.

Marc quickly went to work, placing a call to the prescribing oncologist to gather a comprehensive history on the young girl, as well as the necessary clinical rationale to make the approval. Typically, once a medication is clinically approved, the pharmacist’s job is complete and the prescription can be filled by a local pharmacy. However, this particular oncology drug was classified as a limited-distribution medication, typically dispensed only through mail-order facilities. Realizing that the family would not have time to wait, Marc contacted a specialty pharmacy in the area to try to come up with a quicker solution.

He reached out to the pharmacy’s lead oncology pharmacist and confirmed that the medication was in stock, and they conferenced in Jane’s physician to place the order.  Marc worked with the oncology pharmacist to schedule delivery of the medication to the family. When they called the mother to tell her the good news, they could hear the emotion and gratitude in her voice. Thanks to the swift and diligent work of many, Jane and her family were off on their dream vacation with this important medication in hand.

Thank you to Marc Ream and the commercial pharmacy team for this empowering story that shows just how passionate and committed we are to leading humanity to healthy, more vibrant lives.

*Details around the specific circumstances of this story have been changed to protect the identities of both Jane (not her real name) and her family.

Magellan Rx Management will soon be hosting the 14^th Annual Specialty Summit.  We had the opportunity to sit down with Phillip Vecchiolli, senior vice president and general manager of our specialty division at Magellan Rx Management to share his thoughts on this exciting event.

Magellan Health Insights: What can attendees expect at this year’s Specialty Summit?

Phillip Vecchiolli: The Magellan Rx Management Specialty Summit has become the source for staying ahead in today’s specialty drug management industry.  We host nationally recognized payers, physicians and industry insiders for a program packed with timely insights, thoughtful debate, and actionable dialogue on emerging trends in the evolving specialty market and effective solutions for managing specialty drug trend.

MHI: When and where is it going to be held this year?

PV: We are excited to be back in the heart of New York City. The event takes place on August 28-30, 2017 at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel.  And when attendees aren’t engaging in Summit activities, we encourage them to take in the sights, as we’ll be within walking distance of a number of famous attractions including Central Park, The Plaza Hotel, Radio City Music Hall, MOMA and more.

MHI: Why do you think this event is especially important?

PV: This is an exciting and disruptive time in specialty pharmacy. Specialty drug costs are skyrocketing and without an understanding of the unique dynamics around specialty drug management, payers run the risk of overlooking or misunderstanding this critical area of pharmacy spend.

At Magellan Rx Management, we specialize in connecting people with the tools, and information they need to make the best decisions for the populations they serve.  This event serves as a forum for nationally recognized payers, oncologists, and industry thought leaders to explore and discuss the key issues and challenges we face in an evolving specialty market.  Along with general topic presentations we also have a few interviews and panels for even more information-sharing discussions designed to provide an environment of teamwork and strategic information sharing.

MHI: Who typically attends the specialty summit?

PV: The Specialty Summit is designed especially for health plans, employer groups, states, third-party administrators, oncologists, practice managers, brokers, consultants and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

MHI: What are you most excited about this year?

PV: This year’s program is packed with timely insights from thought leaders across the specialty landscape and is designed to shine a light on the emerging trends and effective solutions in this evolving specialty market.

From its beginnings 14 years ago, this conference has exploded in terms of attendance and the caliber of our programming. This year, we’re expecting over 600 attendees, with numerous opportunities to network and meet with our peers, as well as compelling programming and dialogue around the most pressing topics in our industry. I’m particularly looking forward to the presentations and discussions about the oncology landscape, the Affordable Care Act, biosimilars, and medical pharmacy.  Our keynote Dr. Matt Iseman is going to be pretty spectacular too!

MHI: Any closing words?

PV: We are thrilled to again be hosting the 14^th Annual Specialty Summit.  At Magellan Rx, we are proud to be pioneers in specialty pharmacy management. By leveraging our industry-leading expertise and value-driven solutions, we help our clients solve their specialty pharmacy challenges. Our passion is to help people live more vibrant lives and to motivate them to take better control of their health.

Learn more about the Specialty Summit

Did you know that Parkinson’s disease psychosis (PDP) is diagnosed in about half of all Parkinson’s diseases patients and presents practitioners with significant disease management challenges?

The Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy recently published a manuscript written by a panel of experts from neurology, psychiatry, geriatrics, and geropsychiatry as well as thought leaders from several health plans and Magellan Rx Management to discuss management of PDP.

Dr. Maria Lopes, chief medical officer of Magellan Rx Management, noted the importance of this work: “I think that this research is vital to a better understanding of complex diseases, identify opportunities to develop best practices and key insights that can improve patient care and outcomes.”

The panel discussed the challenging nature of Parkinson’s disease and PDP, the role emerging therapies may play in optimizing effective management and the need for essential education for providers and patients regarding PDP and available therapies.

Take a look at the latest issue of The Journal of Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy to read more.

Magellan understands that the market looks at pharmacy trends as a gauge to measure pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) success. However, you really can’t compare one trend number to another as every PBM uses different methodologies, different data sets and different calculations to arrive at their trend number, and often adjustments are made to these calculations year-over-year. This is something Magellan likes to call little ‘t’ trend.

Do you know what most of these trend numbers are missing? One of the largest cost drivers today – prescriptions drugs dispensed through the medical benefit – when you combine pharmacy benefit with medical benefit spend, you get what we like to call big ‘T’ Trend. In fact, you need to combine both to see that there is as much, if not more specialty spend going through the medical benefit today that is going unmanaged.

As specialty costs continue to soar the need to leverage effective management and thought-leading expertise is essential.  As pioneers in this complex specialty environment, we have dedicated ourselves to solving the challenges and creating solutions that resolve what’s truly driving big ‘T’ Trend.

Watch our video to learn more.

Learn more about ways to keep specialty spend, an important — and quickly growing — area of pharmacy spend, from Matt Ward, Magellan Rx Management’s general manager of the employer segment. Ward’s op-ed on the subject was recently published in WorldatWork’s magazine. WorldatWork is a nonprofit human resources association and compensation authority for professionals and organizations focused on compensation, benefits and total rewards.

Read more here: Six Ways to Keep Specialty Spend Under Control