ABSTRACT
I am responsible for the health and utilization management programs at Merck-Medco. Let me begin with a definition of pharmacy benefit management. Clearly, there are many organizations that fall under the rubric of managed care that provide an array of services designed to manage the use of pharmaceuticals to deliver high quality care while controlling drug costs and overall health care costs. I am not going to focus on some of the other organizations, such as long-term care providers, hospital pharmacy management, etc., although many of the comments I make will apply to both stand-alone, carve-out PBMs and other managed care organizations that have active management of the pharmacy benefit.
