NJ Spotlight News: Put NJ patients ahead of pharmacy benefit managers

By Jeanette Hoffman, Patients Come First New Jersey’s Executive Director

For too long, New Jersey patients have been caught in the middle of a broken prescription drug system — one where costs are rising, access is inconsistent and transparency is virtually nonexistent.

At the center of this dysfunction are pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, powerful supply-chain middlemen that were intended to help manage drug costs, but now often do the opposite.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill deserves credit for making PBM reform a priority in her inaugural budget. By elevating this issue, she has sent a clear message: Patients, not middlemen, must come first.

PBMs play an outsized role in determining which medications patients can access, what they pay at the pharmacy counter and which pharmacies can participate in their networks. Yet their operations remain largely opaque. Patients and providers alike are left in the dark about how decisions are made, how rebates are negotiated and where the money ultimately goes.

Read the full LTE in NJ Spotlight News here.