Facts:

• Drug benefit costs continue to rise as health plans and employers struggle to manage this benefit that has outpaced overall medical benefit trends.
• Drugs represent the single most costly factor driving health care costs for employees.
• Trend will continue to rise as new, expensive drugs are introduced and the population ages but there are ways to meet these challenges head-on.

World Congress is proud to present the 2nd Annual Executive Forum on Rx Benefit Management taking place July 23-24, 2007 in San Francisco at the Hilton San Francisco Financial District Hotel. The Forum showcases payer responses to the rising cost of pharmaceuticals with creative new strategies to improve patient outcomes. The Forum identifies pertinent issues for plans to address in 2007/2008 that include developing MTM programs, addressing ways to overcome barriers to diverse population drug challenges, adapting to market shifts with consumer-directed initiatives and measuring the impact and effectiveness of existing pharmacy management programs. Additionally, the event showcases empirical case examples from employers that successfully execute drug benefit design programs, lowering medical costs, improving health outcomes, and lowering absenteeism while increasing employee productivity. The Forum highlights how employers and payers are developing new and innovative strategies for management of this benefit while maintaining clinically appropriate access, efficient delivery and practical affordability.

The Rx Benefit Management Forum 2007 will help senior executives from employers, health plans, pharmaceutical companies, PBMs and government to:

• Design effective value-based drug benefit design strategies and programs and the impact on chronic disease outcomes
• Implement medication therapy management services (MTMS)
• Understand the growing area of specialty drug utilization, the impact on patient outcomes and develop effective programs to address the trend
• Hear the pros and cons of developing an in-house/onsite pharmacy program versus outsourcing the benefit
• Focus on the growing trend of specialty drug benefits and the impact and value on patient outcomes
• Determine appropriate utilization rates and accurately forecast pharmacy spend
• Benchmark drug plan design against peer organizations, and avoid mistakes others have made while testing programs