Patrick Cooney, 2024 PBMI, What Will the PBM Legislation Include

In an interview at the 2024 PBMI Annual National Conference in Orlando, Florida, Patrick Cooney, president of The Federal Group and a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, said the pharmacy benefit management (PBM) legislation that Congress is likely to approve in the upcoming lameduck session will probably have three elements: elimination of spread pricing in Medicare, a requirement that rebates get passed through to plan sponsors and "pretty robust reporting requirements.
"Transparency is sort of the name of the game in DC this year," said Cooney. PBMs are not alone in the trend, he added. "The focus is definitely on hospitals [and] definitely on insurers."