Prime Therapeutics Receives PBMI's Excellence Award

EAGAN, Minn., March 7, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI) presented Prime Therapeutics LLC (Prime), a leading pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) with more than 27 million members nationally, with an Excellence Award for its Controlled Substance Management Program in the Opioid Management Strategies category. This award recognizes organizations making significant strides in bringing practical and scalable solutions to the marketplace that address the opioid epidemic.

Prime's Controlled Substance Management Program uses a comprehensive approach that identifies members who are at risk of controlled substance misuse and encourages them to get into programs that can help reduce their risk. As highlighted in the award submission, the program consists of Prime's controlled substance scoring system, prescriber outreach programs, and point-of-sale alerts. Additionally, it includes utilization management approaches to help members get safe, clinically effective and cost-effective medicines, GuidedHealth^® programs dedicated to improving members' misuse and abuse – by addressing overuse, drug safety and drug cost management – and future predictive modeling to help further identify and reduce misuse.

Prime's program is helping produce positive outcomes in the fight against the opioid epidemic.  In the past five years, Prime has achieved a 71 percent decline in the number of high-risk opioid users across 15 million commercial members.

"We are extremely proud to have our industry-leading Controlled Substance Management Program recognized by PBMI," said Jonathan Gavras, M.D., Prime's chief medical officer. "Prime has been helping our Blue Cross and Blue Shield health plan clients tackle this important work for more than a decade and we continue to make significant improvements in the effort to save lives. Harnessing our integrated medical and pharmacy data has enabled us to continue to bring innovative solutions to address the opioid epidemic and help save lives."

"Opioid abuse has become more problematic over the years. We are pleased to present Prime Therapeutics with this award for their Controlled Substance Management Program which incorporates the review of integrated pharmacy and medical data to alert physicians of identify potential high-risk opioid users," says Jane Lutz, Executive Director, PBMI. "This program incorporates several integrated efforts including prescriber outreach, point of sale alerts, utilization management, reporting, member interventions, review, and predictive modeling."

PBMI is an independent research and educational organization dedicated to the pharmacy benefit management industry. Since its inception in 1995, PBMI has provided thought leadership, independent research and resources that support evidence-based, actionable decision making by health care stakeholders. Each Excellence Award recipient is recognized for exceptional programs and strategies contributing to cost containment, care management and quality improvement for the drug benefit.

About Prime Therapeutics
Prime Therapeutics LLC (Prime) helps people get the medicine they need to feel better and live well. Prime manages pharmacy benefits for health plans, employers, and government programs including Medicare and Medicaid. The company processes claims and offers clinical services for people with complex medical conditions. Prime serves more than 27 million people. It is collectively owned by 18 Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, subsidiaries or affiliates of those plans. For more information, visit www.primetherapeutics.com or follow @Prime_PBM on Twitter.

About PBMI
The Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute is dedicated to unraveling the complexities of pharmacy benefit management by providing research, continuing education, and Web resources that help organizations work effectively with their pharmacy benefit managers to improve the overall management of drug benefit programs. Learn more at www.pbmi.com.

SOURCE Prime Therapeutics