How PBMs, Pharmacists Can Team Up to Improve Women's Health

Creating an environment where patients’ menopausal and women’s health-related symptoms are heard and supported by key stakeholders is crucial for women to receive the care they deserve.

“A colleague's wife came into my office, and she had finally talked to her clinician about her menopause symptoms. She got the prescriptions she needed, the ones that made sense for her, and she felt hopeful for the first time that she would get management of her symptoms, and then she hit a wall,” Susan Thomas, RN, chief commercial officer at LucyRx, told Drug Topics. “The medication was excluded from her formulary, there was no guidance, no alternatives offered, and her only option was to pay cash or to walk away.”

As COO and founding leader of independent pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) LucyRx, Thomas and her team have worked with many stakeholders to better understand the challenges in formulary coverage for both patients and pharmacists. While actively working to separate itself from major, often-scrutinized PBMs, LucyRx is looking to gather its expertise and provide more valued care among patients seeking women’s health services.

In this week’s episode of Over the Counter, Thomas joined Drug Topics to discuss LucyRx’s current role in women’s health and the new offerings it’s providing for women and pharmacists that participate in its programs. Learn more about LucyRx and its brand-new LucyRx Women’s Health Benefit program launching in January.

“The program starts with access,” she continued. “We went back to the formulary, and we asked a really basic question, why are hundreds of medications to treat menopause symptoms excluded in the first place from national formularies across the PBM space?”

Stay tuned for weekly podcast episodes of Over the Counter powered by Drug Topics. Check out our most recent episode with Jennifer Flynn, CPHRM, manager of healthcare risk management at Aon and vice president of healthcare risk management at Healthcare Providers Service Organization. She discussed opportunities and dangers of pharmacists’ social media use.

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