Tallahassee Democrat, January 11, 2020
There are people with no medical training and no obligation to patients who have the power to override medical decisions made by patients and their physicians.
These people are pharmacy benefit managers — called PBMs. These pharmaceutical middlemen claim their role is to negotiate savings on prescriptions for patients.
But their scope extends dangerously beyond business negotiations. They can decide whether patients can receive the treatments recommended by their physicians.
These are businessmen, not medical professionals — and they are altering the care patients receive.
Many of my patients in Tallahassee have had their health jeopardized by these dangerous practices.
Delays from PBMs recently left one of my patients without oral chemotherapy medication for six weeks. Those delays have real consequences and, due to this interruption, my patient must now drive from Chattahoochee to my office three times a week for a more intensive IV treatment.
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