Interview With The Chief Scientist of Express Scripts from STLToday

Here is a quickie from the St. Louis Post Dispatch. It seems to be an interview with the Chief Scientist from Express Scripts, however it is just a series of questions and answers without any reference text. I do think these are interesting questions though, and really makes me think about mail order pharmacies.

Why aren't you doing it? The costs are reduced for 90 day supplies. It makes perfect sense to me, since I am on two maintenance medications, yet I still have not done it - why? I do not really know. I printed out the form, and then it sat on my desk for a week. I think I took it home, then it was put in a drawer and lost it. We have since changed health plans, so maybe I will look into it again.

Enjoy the Q and A:

Can you give a brief explanation of Express Scripts' Center for Cost-Effective Consumerism?

The center brings together leading experts in behavioral economics to gain an advanced understanding of human behavior applied to health care. The center uses this information to help bring about positive health behavior change one consumer at a time. Right now, we're focused on procrastination as one major obstacle to better behavior.

One of the center's recent studies found patients were more likely to take medications as directed when they received those medications through the mail. Can you discuss these findings?

The study found that medication compliance was about 8 percentage points higher at home delivery than retail in key therapy classes: diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. The study involved more than 70,000 patients followed for nine months, and the design was such that we are confident that the difference in therapy adherence was due directly to home delivery.

Do you know any reasons why patients receiving drugs through mail order are more compliant?

There are at least two issues. First, it's clear that some of the noncompliance is due to procrastination when it comes to getting refills. This leads to gaps in compliance because patients wind up not having their medications. Because home delivery offers 90-day supplies, there are fewer refills needed and thus fewer gaps.

Second, our data show that patients in home delivery are far more engaged; they call us more often, log in to our website more often and increasingly view us as a trusted partner. This helps us communicate more effectively with them about their care.

Why don't more patients choose mail order?

Based on our work with the center's advisory board, we think it's more about procrastination than an active decision not to use home delivery.

In the past, moving to home delivery meant filling out forms, calling the doctor for a new prescription written for 90-day fills, etc. Express Scripts has new programs that take almost all of that work off patients' shoulders, so we expect a lot more of them to take advantage of home delivery going forward.

What should employers and other health insurer purchasers do if they want to encourage their employees or members to use mail order?

Clearly, financial incentives are not enough to drive members to home delivery. In addition to making sure patients save money on their co-payments at mail, employers and insurers should work with a PBM partner that can address the issue of procrastination and communicate effectively with patients.