Dr John Bennett on Slowing Rising Drug Costs

In order to slow the rising costs of prescription drugs there has to be a greater emphasis on value-based payments, on transparency, and on the consumer, perhaps even with the government’s help, said John Bennett, MD, FACC, FACP, president and CEO of CDPHP.

Transcript (modified)

Are there policies that can be enacted to help stem the rising costs of prescription drugs?

I think we all have to embrace value-based payments. At CDPHP we embrace value-based payments with our providers. We do value-based payments with our physicians, we’re trying to do it with our hospitals, we’re interested in doing it with the pharmaceutical industry, and I think one thing that’s very clear about that is that we have to be careful how we define value.

One cannot take out every penny of value for the rest of the patient’s life and make that the price of the drug. We have to get beyond “it’s your money or it’s your life.” And I think transparency plays a big role, I think encouraging and requiring value-based purchasing, and I think, at the end of the day, we have to tackle the problem about unit price.

Unit price in American healthcare matters: the market dynamics favor the pharmaceutical industry greatly over the consumer and, quite frankly, I think, at some point, the government has to get involved.