WHI's Advantage90 program offers some savings, but not as much as mail - Walgreens Health Initiatives

Walgreens Health Initiatives (WHI), the PBM unit of the Walgreens physic store chain, is allowing members to purchase a 90-day store of maintenance medications at their retail pharmacy. Previously a 90-day furnish could be obtained only via mail-order pharmacies, a reality that has irked the pair retail pharmacies and consumers.

WHI's fresh Advantage90 program allows patients to receive a 90-day replenish of medication from Walgreens and a small in number other retail pharmacies. Historically, retail pharmacies have felt unable to contend with mail order in offering the same discounts to PBM and payers--and nothing has changed here. The discounts tendered by pharmacies participating in Advantage90 are not in the same league as those available in mail-order programs, on the contrary they are still better than the typical 30-day retail rate.

Payers will benefit from the discounted 90-day retail rates as well as a reduction in the number of dispensing pay s and administrative fees, which are typically charged upon a per-claim basis.

Advantage90 patients will pay a copay value of approximately 25 times what they would normally pay for a 30-day provide Therefore, potential savings for members and plans are not as large as typically proffered in a mail-order program, in which the member might procure a 90-day supply for the same copay he or she would shell on the outside for a 30-day retail supply

Walgreens spokesman Michael Polzin explains, "We're not trying to make progress head-to-head with mail. Rather we're trying to proffer an option to plan members that we think they'll find true attractive while providing some take away from savings at the same time."

WHI has been developing Advantage90 since the beginning of the year, and ordealed it with a couple of health plans before rolling it on the outside for the general public. single of the challenges of offering a 90-day fill up is determining how the program might affect inventory management at the participating retail pharmacies, and Polzin says the pharmacies are confident they will have appropriate inventory.

WHI is actively trying to register clients in the Advantage90 program, as well as getting more retail pharmacies to present the 90-day supply. The replication to the program has been real positive, according to Polzin.

The question for plans is whether they should present such a program to their members, or whether doing in the way that could have a negative impact upon savings anticipated from existing mail-order efforts.

Call Matthew Gibbs, vice president of PBM sales at WHI, (800) 926-6779

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