Health Plans Get Very Poor Scores for Access to Autoimmune Drugs

Both public and private health plans score poorly when it comes to providing access to autoimmune medication, according to a report commissioned by the Autoimmune Association and Let My Doctors Decide, a national partnership of healthcare professionals. The analysis, published January 26, found that 75% of insurers in the United States have policies that can limit coverage for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved medications for Crohn's disease, lupus nephritis, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, and ulcerative colitis.

"Choice among health plans is a hallmark of the American health insurance system, yet this analysis shows that people living with autoimmune conditions have few, if any, coverage choices that do not involve significant to severe access restrictions," the authors wrote.

The study looked at three common utilization management policies by health plans that can limit coverage of certain medications: step therapy, formulary/tier placement, and prior authorization. To compare health plans, researchers weighted these policies using a point system. Each medication indicated for each condition was given a score of zero to four based on access restrictions in a health plan. If a plan used step therapy, it received one point, and requiring prior authorization added an additional point. They also added points based on where a drug appeared on a plan's formulary. A lower total score meant fewer access barriers. The numbers were then added, and each health plan received a grade of A, B, C, or F based on their average score. The datasets and analysis were provided and performed by the data analytics firm MMIT.

Nearly nine in 10 Medicare plans received a C or worse for coverage of medication received via mail order or the pharmacy. In commercial plans, the majority of plans scored Cs or Fs for six of the seven conditions, excluding lupus nephritis, where 67% of all commercial health plans scored a B for access to these medications.

Physician-administered medications tended to receive poorer coverage than drugs received via pharmacy. Across all conditions, 65% of Medicare Advantage plans scored an F for physician-administered medication access. For both psoriasis and multiple sclerosis, at least 80% of Medicare plans earned failing scores due to these restrictions. Coverage was poorer on both commercial and health exchange plans, where across all conditions, 83% achieved failing scores. Two exceptions were the Southern and Northern California PPO plans by the Kaiser Foundation Health Plan. Out of the largest 25 health plans in the United States, these two plans earned As in coverage for physician-administered medications across all seven autoimmune conditions.

The report shows "a growing disconnect between science and health insurance benefit designs that were developed in the 1960s and 1970s," said Kenneth Thorpe, PhD, of the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, in an interview with Medscape Medical News. Insurers originally designed these benefits to prevent excessive utilization in a population of mostly acutely ill patients, he said, whereas now, 90% of healthcare spending is linked to chronic conditions. For these patients, research shows that incentivizing patients to adhere to medications results in fewer hospitalizations and, therefore, more cost savings, Thorpe noted. These plans also do not consider that there is no average patient, he said, and healthcare providers should be able to match each patient to the best treatment option for them rather than trying out other less expensive medications first. "To the extent that physicians can have the flexibility to provide medications and treatments to patients that are going to have the best clinical response, that's better outcomes at lower cost," Thorpe said. While research shows heterogeneity in patient outcomes with different medication, "benefit designs from the past just don't recognize that," he noted.

Medscape reached out to America's Health Insurance Plans and the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association for comment, but neither organization had responded by the time of publication.

Quardricos Driskell, executive director of Let My Doctors Decide and vice president of government relations and public policy at the Autoimmune Association, hopes the study will spur action by policymakers and health plans to improve access to medications for the people who need them. Another larger point of the report is to "uphold the sanctity of protecting the doctor and patient relationship," he told Medscape, adding, "that decisions fundamentally need to be made not by insurance plans or middleman pharmacy benefit managers, but by the provider and patient."

Driskell and Thorpe report no relevant financial relationships. 

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Cite this: Health Plans Get Very Poor Scores for Access to Autoimmune Drugs - Medscape - Feb 14, 2023.