More than 350 U.S. employers representing 17.2 million members sounded off on the service performance of their pharmacy benefit management vendors in 17 areas. Here's a synopsis of The 2009 Pharmacy Benefit Manager Customer Satisfaction Report–
From the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute:
"Employers have given PBMs a weighted average rating of 7.6 on Overall Service & Performance. This is a measure of overall satisfaction for all of the services involved in the design, administration and monitoring of a drug benefit program. PBMs earned a weighted mean rating of 7.5 on Delivering Promised Savings and Delivering Promised Services.
Recommended For You
PBMI data document the correlation of employers' level of satisfaction with financial transparency to their service ratings on PBM performance. The 26.6% of employers who are Extremely Satisfied with the level of financial transparency gave their PBMs significantly higher ratings on all service functions than those employers who are less satisfied.
Nearly one-fourth (23.7%) of employers indicated that they were involved in a competitive procurement process during the past six months, qualifying them to rate their satisfaction with Request for Proposal (RFP) process attributes. While employers rated their satisfaction with Responsiveness to RFP Questions high at 8.3, they indicated a level of dissatisfaction with Clarity of Contract Language by rating it comparatively lower at 7.4.
81% of employers provided a rating for Specialty Pharmacy. These employers were asked to rate PBM performance on four specialty pharmacy management activities. The ratings range from 7.2 to 7.8.
77.9% of respondents who describe the degree of transparency of their financial relationship with their PBMs as Completely Transparent or Somewhat Transparent rate their PBMs higher than those whose relationships are "Not Transparent".
66.1% of employers perceive their PBMs' goals are aligned with theirs. This alignment leads to higher ratings than the 15.4% who perceive goals are not aligned. Employers have given their PBMs a Net Promoter Score of +13% based on an equation where 41% Promoters – 28% Detractors =+13%.
Conclusion
While employers are highly satisfied with their PBMs, the importance of transparency is evident. Goal alignment and increased transparency in the employer-PBM relationship engender high ratings on Overall Service & Performance, Delivering Promised Savings, and Delivering Promised Services as well as on service functions. In addition to goal alignment and improved financial transparency, there remains an opportunity to improve important aspects of PBM product/service offerings from the employer's perspective."
Want more? The 2009 Pharmacy Benefit Management Report is available for order in electronic or print formats at www.pbmi.com. PBMI members receive a 10 percent discount on the $279 report.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
