Enlyte Pharmacists Discuss a Changing Workers’ Comp Pharmacy Landscape

Workers' compensation pharmacy is constantly evolving, 解决阿片类药物危机, to the rise of compounding pharmacies, 应对大流行. 在这些变化中, pharmacy benefit managers must constantly evolve to address an array of industry changes. 在决赛中 Enlytening谈话 our pharmacists discuss how changes within the industry as a whole including physician shortages, 数字疗法, 生物-心理-社会的方法, 新药治疗, and much more are driving the need for constant planning and innovation to stay a step ahead in this ever-changing landscape.

米奇弗里曼(MF): When you look back at workers' compensation pharmacy, it's gone through a lot of changes. So, 你知道, I remember when the opioid crisis came up and it, 你知道, 它影响了工人的赔偿, 不成比例地, 你知道, 这个国家的其他地方. You know, there were changes as well, compounding pharmacy came in. And it's not much of an issue now because for the most part, 你知道, 这些问题已经解决了. 你进入医师配药, 网外药房, I think the only thing consistent in workers' compensation pharmacy is that it changes. 正确的. 你觉得接下来会发生什么?

尼基·威尔逊(西北): I think that's definitely a big deal. It's looking at the past learning from what the challenges have been, 但就像你说的, 总会有下一件事. 总会有新的东西出现. 它的改变. So having a really good plan for how are you gonna innovate? How are you gonna stay ahead of some of those challenges? Anticipate some of those challenges. So looking at market trends and really having a finger on the pulse of what's going on, 不仅仅是在行业层面, 所以不仅仅是影响公司的因素, 但从更大的角度来看.

NW: 的 way that we drive product development, 我认为这是解决问题的方法, 是看得很宏观吗. So what are the changes impacting? Let's say, for example health care. 我们缺少医生. We have the impact of the pandemic where nurses are burned out, and all of our health care workers are struggling these days with, 被照顾, and it's getting better every day, but that's certainly the environment. We're also starting to see an expansion of things like telehealth. 的 pandemic also drove a lot of that where all of a sudden no one was able to leave their homes. And those things transformed care forever. Where now we have more opportunities to treat differently. Different treatment opportunities. Digital therapeutics is a big new space with everyone having a smartphone in their hands. How can we deliver care right to the user through an app?

NW: 或者某种医疗技术. So looking at those kinds of health care changes, focus on biopsychosocial approach to health care, that's certainly been an impact at the macro level that we're seeing a shift in health care in general. So keeping those things in mind and then drilling them down into how we use them within our own programs internally to impact the comp space is so important.

NW: 不仅如此, 但是相比之下, we have a number of workplace changes that I think are impacting and causing issues and challenges for a lot of our industry, and those are things like we have an aging workforce. 的y're five different generations at work right now, and what the drug mix might look like for a person over sixty-five who might still be on the job and all of the different things that they're taking and having to manage that through pharmacy is likely very different than a young twenty-four year old just getting their start in the industry. 诸如此类的事情, 工作场所的其他挑战, 所有的工作都在家里完成, the mix in a remote versus on-site, so when a workplace injury happens, it could be at your desk in your home office.

NW: So how do those coverage options impact our care? 这些都是宏观层面的. But what we try to do is think about what those trends are that are coming, 关注市场趋势, 开始围绕它们进行创新, anticipate needs that might come out of those. Investigational therapies is another big one, watching everything that's happening in the space with psychedelics. You and I were just talking about this. Some of the new investigational drug treatments for things like PTSD and depression.

NW: So understanding how those might impact our space starting to think ahead for how we can support management of those challenging pharmaceuticals and payments. Mental health, that's a big focus right now. So we're seeing definitely lots of changes within the industry and being able to innovate around those. 计划客户可能需要什么, what pharmacy might need as a result of some of those big challenges is so important. And so we're doing a lot of things in our space to try to think ahead and develop programs to manage those things.