Newsroom

NPC Updates - August/September, 2003

This Issue:

• New Resources from NPC
• NPC's Annual Medicaid Compilation

New Resources from NPC:

• An Employer's Guide to Pharmaceutical Benefits, 2003
  This guide, produced by the Wye River Group on Healthcare, focuses on the role of employer-purchasers in providing pharmaceutical benefits for employees, as they struggle to balance economic pressures with a need to support their workforce. It is intended to provide practical tools to assist employers in meeting those demands.
  
• Pharmaceuticals and Worker Productivity Loss: A Critical Review of the Literature, reprinted from Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. By Wayne N. Burton, MD, Alan Morrison, PhD, and Albert I. Wertheimer, PhD, Journal of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, Vol. 45, No. 6, June 2003
  Many chronic illnesses that affect the working population can cause losses in productivity. The evidence is very good for about a dozen drug classes that pharmaceuticals reduce productivity losses caused by respiratory illnesses (i.e. asthma, allergic disorders, bronchitis, upper respiratory infections, and influenza), diabetes, depression, dysmenorrheal, and migraine. This article should be helpful to occupational physicians who are increasingly providing recommendations on employer benefit plan designs and pharmaceutical benefits.
  
• Disease Management for Depression, 2003
  This monograph provides an introduction to disease management along with an analysis of penetration, trends and growth. Disease management strategies have great potential to improve therapeutic outcomes for patients with depression. Although there can be some challenges in managing depression through a disease management program, many programs have had success. While not every program included in the literature search represents a comprehensive disease management program, examples of specific educational interventions for depression are included and discussed.
  
• Medicaid Disease Management Programs: Findings from Three Leading US State Programs. By Jeann L. Gillespie and Louis F. Rossiter, Disease Management & Health Outcomes, Vol. 11, No. 6, June 2003
  A growing number of states are beginning legislative and administrative studies, piloting disease management programs, and expanding existing programs. There is no single, correct way to implement programs across patient populations. Results will depend upon the way the program is implemented, the model used, the diseases selected, and the ability to implement purely voluntary efforts or programs with strong incentives and outcome-driven approaches.
  
• Pharmaceutical Benefits Under State Medical Assistance Programs, 2002
  This compilation of data on State Medical Assistance Programs presents a general overview of the characteristics of state programs, together with detailed information on the pharmaceutical benefits provided. The data collection efforts cover all states with Medicaid programs and the District of Columbia. This 600-page book, compiled annually by NPC, has become a standard reference for federal and state health officials, consultancies, research libraries, and numerous businesses. See details below.
  

NPC's Annual Medicaid Compilation:

Medicaid programs account for a significant portion of all health care expenditures in the United States. Medicaid is the largest single health insurance program in the United States and covers approximately 15 percent of the nation's population. In 2000, Medicaid expenditures accounted for more than 15 percent of national health care expenditures.

Managing a Medicaid budget requires an understanding of the forces that influence trends in spending including changes in policy at both the State and Federal levels. Changes in policy impact important factors that drive total expense including population size and demographic mix, prices, managed care penetration, and supply of services (i.e., number of providers).

For over 30 years, the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC) has published Pharmaceutical Benefits under State Medical Assistance Programs, a unique source of information on pharmacy programs within the State Medical Assistance Programs (Title XIX). Over the years, this "Medicaid Compilation" of statistics has become a standard reference in government offices, research libraries, consultancies, and numerous businesses.

The "Medicaid Compilation" incorporates information on each State pharmacy program from an annual NPC survey of State Medicaid program administrators and pharmacy consultants, statistics from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) [formerly the Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA)], and information from other Federal agencies and organizations.

To order any of these publications in hard copy (free of charge), please go to our order form or call (703) 620-6390.

Since 1953, NPC has sponsored and conducted scientific, evidence-based analyses of the appropriate use of pharmaceuticals and the clinical and economic value of pharmaceutical innovation. NPC provides educational resources to a variety of health care stakeholders, including patients, clinicians, payers and policy makers. More than 20 research-based pharmaceutical companies are members of the NPC.

We encourage you to pass this message on to colleagues who may find this information useful. To subscribe please click here. To unsubscribe, please send an email to main@npcnow.com with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.