Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to Voices in Pharmacy Innovation, the podcast where we spotlight bold ideas and groundbreaking practices that are transforming pharmacy practice and healthcare care delivery. I'm Dave Dixon, professor and chair at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy and core faculty member of the Center for Pharmacy Practice Innovation.
Speaker: In each episode, we'll sit down with pharmacists, healthcare care leaders, and change makers who are rethinking how pharmacy can improve patient care and push the boundaries of what's possible in our profession.
Speaker: Together, we'll share stories, explore new models of practice, and amplify the voices driving pharmacy innovation forward.
Speaker: Today I'm excited to have Dr. Joey Mattingly with us on the podcast. Dr. Mattingly is an associate professor and the vice chair of research at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy.
Speaker: His expertise lies in drug pricing policy and pharmacy benefit management. Dr. Mattingly has also served as an advisor to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to support implementation of the new drug price negotiation program authorized by Congress through the Inflation Reduction Act.
Speaker: Prescription drug costs in America feel quite broken. And basically, patients are, at times, needing to skip medications they need. Employers' health care systems are facing rising costs.
Speaker: And somewhere between the drug manufacturer and the pharmacy counter, a system so complex that even health care professionals, including myself, at times struggle to explain it. And that's the pharmacy benefit management system. Are PBMs controlling cost?
Speaker: Or are they distorting the market? Today, we are very fortunate to have Dr. Mattingly with us to help us unpack what I think is one of the most controversial and misunderstood forces in healthcare. care Joey, thanks so much for joining us on today's podcast.
Speaker: Thanks, Dave. Excited to be here. Fantastic. So before we jump in, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about your background and how this became ah your passion?
Speaker: Yeah, thanks. so And again, it is an honor to get to work with the VCU team and and talk about this topic. I'd been in this space really since I was 18 years old. i've been working as a pharmacy technician, then a pharmacist, then a district manager for the Kroger Company. Did all of the private sector, helped launch a long-term care pharmacy startup before academia. it But in that private sector space, I actually wasn't really... um having an impact on health policy like I thought I could and like I really wanted as ah as I was pursuing pharmacy as a passion. And so I had this great opportunity back in 2014 to go work at the University of Maryland as a faculty member while pursuing a PhD in health economics and really getting a chance to dive super deep in the topic. And in a weird way, it's ah turned me from having a lot more opinions when I was younger to now having fewer opinions and more more questions, I guess, ah the further I dive into this topic.
Speaker: That's great. Thanks for sharing. And i think it's always great to hear folks who, you know, got such an early start in pharmacy. I also was a pharmacy technician in high school, had a great experience in the independent community pharmacy world, and then also did a little bit of moonlighting for some of the ah the corporate pharmacies out there.
Speaker: And so I think that perspective just helps you so much, right, in terms of research and a lot of the work that we do. So let's jump in. And I want to start at a high level and talking about drug pricing, how that relates to PBMs. So just starting off, what exactly drives the high prices of drugs that we see in the United States? You know, compared to other countries, you see this in the news frequently about the high prices in the U.S. So help our listeners understand why that's the case.
Speaker: Yeah, ah great question. So yeah what i spend a lot of time doing is is trying to unpack the topic and and explain the complexity of the topic as well. So one of the challenges is ah some misconceptions. We have some of the lowest price drugs across modern countries. When you look at the generic drugs that the U.S. s has in its supply chain, it's the branded pharmaceuticals that often garner the most attention and in high prices. And then what also makes it more challenging is we do not have the net price that a large insurance company may pay for the drug because that's a privately negotiated price between a drug manufacturer and the insurance company or a pharmacy benefit manager. So the list price may say $1,000 a pill, ah but the net price may be $1,000.
Speaker: 30% of that, like it may be $300. And I don't know if it's, if it's intentional ah in the policy space, like if it's intentional when people say to try to grab a headline, you know, $1,000 a pill versus actually reporting what's probably truly paid. Or if it's, you know, from an advocacy angle, because I see both Republicans and Democrats using it, depending on what the policy topic is, because when you compare it to what a patient in Denmark or what the system in Denmark is paying or what in the UK or in Canada, you a true net price may actually be much closer than than what people realize.
Speaker: That's really helpful. And I think what I hear you saying is that it's complicated and there's more to the story, which I think will probably be a theme of this entire episode. So for healthcare professionals who hear about pharmacy benefit management, you know in the media and things that they read online, they maybe don't quite have a great understanding of what exactly a PBM is and and help our listeners understand kind of what a PBM is and exactly what problem were they originally designed to solve?
Speaker: Yeah. PBMs have been around since really 1959. First one formed in Canada and then by 1960 started forming in the U.S. Formed by pharmacists. Actually, independent pharmacies were trying to help nations figure out a way to pay for these rising drug costs that were happening in the nineteen sixty s As the innovative pharmaceutical industry was coming out with new and new drugs. And you think about the 1940s and fifty s in the US, we didn't even have prescriptions, you know, like you might see the doctor and they might tell you, hey, go you know pick up this tincture at the pharmacy. You didn't really need a prescription. And then as ah that industry evolved, health insurance became a larger growing thing in the 1940s and 50s. And the prices of drugs were totally out of pocket, 100% patient paying without insurance. And then there you know started to be more of a demand for
Speaker: a pharmacy benefit. So and initially it started as prepaid plans where maybe at the beginning of the year you pay ah x amount of dollars front or monthly amount so that we have sort of a prepaid system. And then essentially the early PBMs were processing the claims that the pharmacies ah were submitting. But as you imagine, over the like next 60 years, they evolved substantially and playing a larger role in today's healthcare system and creating and managing formularies.
Speaker: creating utilization utilization management, which is a fancy term for the things that a lot of us as patients and providers get annoyed with, like prior authorization, step therapy requirements. But these are access restriction steps to reduce costs or to steer patients to a particular product, say a generic first before you get the brand name product. At its highest level, ah most clinicians and patients would say, yeah, that's probably fine. You know, for most patients, maybe the generic drug or the lower price option works. And then for a subset of patients, maybe we need to, once they fail the generic, it's okay to then approve the higher price product. But then obviously, you know, it gains a lot of negative attention too when a benefit manager maybe has an incentive ah to...
Speaker: to prefer one product over the other, or the employers that hire the PBM-7 incentive as well. So that's where it gets really complicated. And what a lot of us can probably agree on and in certain cases is like, okay, if a patient has a condition And they need treatment. And, you know, we've all decided based on best practices, based on the research that this treatment should be approved. How do we make sure they have access to that without having to jump through so many hoops and and it being so painful to use the health care system where they end up disengaging and not getting the therapy they need, end up in the hospital for a more costly situation because they didn't get the drug that they needed. So it's it's like, how do we get there in a way that's ah good for the patient, but also good for the health care system itself?
Speaker: It's a great summary and certainly something that i encounter when I'm in clinic. And yeah, it's it's like on one hand, you can certainly understand the the intended purpose, but then at times it seems like the the implementation just doesn't really align with what's going on in in the clinic or in the medical setting. um So I think the, like what's It's kind of building off of that. what What are some of the misconceptions that people have about PBMs?
Speaker: Right. Great question. and I've tried to dive in to figure out like where are some of the misconceptions coming from? Like how much of it is, you know, sort of a self, like an own goal where the PBMs have done something, you know, that have just put them in a bad situation? Or is there something where maybe other actors in the supply chain have an incentive to portray them negatively? well And actually, I meant to say this up front, and I like to disclose my conflicts. So in the past year, I have consulted the pharmaceutical industry. I have consulted the PBM industry. And I've actually been a strategic advisor for a large buying group of independent pharmacists. So, Dave, I'm conflicted across the supply chain. But but I say that to say I work with everyone in the supply chain. And I understand that that that each of these stakeholders have different goals and objectives.
Speaker: So we think about the misconceptions. You know, constantly you'll hear the term middlemen middleman. I actually think of that in a lot of cases it's used as a pejorative term. Like it's not necessarily, it's sort of ignoring that they have potentially value in the supply chain. It's sort of acting like they're just this entity that's seeking profit, standing in between the patient and their provider, and that they're just sort of this...
Speaker: bad actor when ultimately like these groups are sought out by employers who are ultimately sponsoring the majority of the insurance in this country. So your commercial plans and any governments put out requests for proposals or RFPs to identify companies to manage the pharmacy benefit that they're providing their employees. So employers design,
Speaker: The service or ask for the things that the PBMs are responding to. So when it's like this idea that PBMs don'tine you know don't compete for customers, they're really ah oftentimes doing what employers are asking them to do. And I know this as someone who's helped write the ah RFPs for a large employer. and And I've evaluated what PBMs submit in those proposals. And what's frustrated me is I've seen even in the largest newspapers in our nation, you know, like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, they often stop at the PBM and they don't ask, well, who's the PBM's customer? How do they get those customers? Who are they serving? Right. They stop at the PBM and they say, oh, the PBM is doing all these things. It's like, well, who's asking them to do it? And and that's been really frustrating that they don't maybe ask that next question.
Speaker: There's always more. There's always more. Right. So shifting gears a little bit, I'd love to kind of talk through, you know, how the money actually moves. And it'd be interesting, I think, for you to kind of walk our listeners through the the journey of a prescription drug dollar. Like where does where does all of this money flow?
Speaker: Yeah, I'll start simply. And let's let's talk first about a generic drug where you don't use your insurance. Okay, so as a former Kroger employee, ah you know, we had the $4 list and you didn't need your insurance to buy a generic amoxicillin or lisinopril for four bucks.
Speaker: Right. So no insurance involved. I hand the pharmacy four dollars. That's the four dollars that the pharmacy has said is its cash price. ah The pharmacy is acquiring that drug from a wholesaler. So even as a large chain like Kroger, we had ah you know multiple wholesalers that we engage with. So there are three large wholesalers, but also several smaller wholesalers because the drug companies do not send the drugs to the pharmacy. they They send to these large wholesalers that have these large warehouses and distribution systems. So the wholesaler has a piece there as well. And then for a generic company, then of course, that $4, a portion of that $4 is flowing back to the purchase of the of the product at their price. So now we get insurance involved and that's where the fun begins, right? So when once an insurance enters the the game, if you will, or the supply chain, So in a pharmacy benefit manager's case, and we'll use a branded drug to because that's where a lot of the controversy is around. Again, the higher price, we hear these terms like rebates and discounts and whatnot. So the PBM is representing a large group like an employer. So I'll use the University of Utah as an example. We have 30,000 employees and beneficiaries. So rather than me, Joey Mattingly, going and asking Pfizer for a discount on one of its drugs, as a group of 30,000, our HR team has said, hey, let's let's try to get better deals. And then through that, let's pick one of your favorite PBMs. They represent millions of patients across the country. So when they sit down with Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Merck, whatever, They have much more leverage at the table because they're larger. um And so rather than you know me getting zero discount as a single person with a large number of people, I'm asking for a larger discount. So let's use that $1,000 medication.
Speaker: If the PBM says, hey, there's two drugs in this class of drugs, you're wanting $1,000, the other company's wanting $800. If you'll give me a $300 rebate that brings your net price to seven,
Speaker: Maybe we'll talk. Maybe we'll consider putting you as the more preferred product in this class over your competitor and we'll drive market share your way. All right, that's on the manufacturer side. On the pharmacy side, similarly, there are over 60,000 outpatient retail pharmacies in the U.S. About half are chain and about half are independently owned. um How do you get in the pharmacy network?
Speaker: Well, in order for you to have access to the 30,000 University of Utah employees, you have to agree to the terms that the pharmacy benefit manager wants for a contract.
Speaker: So that may be much lower prices than you would like to sell your products at as ah as a pharmacy, as a business. And so when you look at that, too look at the two so big stakeholders that are functionally opposed to the PBM.
Speaker: Pharmacies must take lower prices. Manufacturers must take lower prices. Therefore, you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. So when you see the anti-PBM ads, guess who's mostly backing them? It's a combination of pharmaceutical industry and pharmacy stakeholders. And that's where the complication gets. And again, not to say that the grievances aren't real, ah not to say, it's just saying that like, you just have to follow the dollar and say, okay, it was who benefits. That's why if you remove PBMs from the equation tomorrow,
Speaker: the question we all should ask is what flows back to the patient? Does that mean the prices come down for the patient or does that mean other members of the supply chain, the the the pharmaceutical industry, the wholesaler, the pharmacy, do they just absorb the value that the PBM was extracting and the in the actual dollars the patients pay never change? So that's kind of where I want us all to talk outside of our conflicts and say, okay, let's really talk about this. How do we How do we make things more affordable and and and talk about it at like a higher level than just representing our individual stakeholder?
Speaker: Now, that's great. i think that's a great overview of some of the misconceptions, different perspectives. And and that's really ah why we wanted to have you on, because I know that you've been you know vocal oh through your your writing and presentations around that. you know We have to look at this issue from all sides, right? And if we're going to make it better, it's not just a very simple fix of removing the supposed villain here, right?
Speaker: um The system still needs... refinement and we all want to make it better. And so that's a good segue into you know the PBM market, right, which is increasingly consolidated. So question for you is related to this issue of vertical integration. So the insurer, the PBM, and maybe even the specialty pharmacy all under one roof,
Speaker: Does that you know help create inefficiencies and reduce cost? Where does conflict of interest come into play? So I'd love to hear your thoughts on the sort of growth of vertical integration.
Speaker: Yeah, I've been blown away by the amount of attention paid to the concept of vertical integration in the pharmaceutical supply chain. When I am calling in on a MacBook and I have my iPhone in my hand, Apple is a $4 trillion dollar company built on vertical integration. There's a reason why the iPhone and the MacBook and all those things work the way that it does and the software is all under that roof. like They have provided value to a consumer through a vertically integrated supply chain for better for worse. And we can argue whether or not that then hurts, you know, Samsung, right? Or Google, ah right? So it's it's across, it's not unique to the pharmaceutical supply chain. So now let's talk about
Speaker: what the the pros and cons of vertical integration is, is this such a bad thing? It can be. It absolutely can be a bad thing. Imagine I want to start my own pharmacy, Joe's Pharmacy, and I want to open up here in Park City, Utah.
Speaker: ah If I'm trying to compete with CVS, that's a big group to compete with, right? Similarly, if I try to open my own coffee shop, Competing with Starbucks is going to be a challenge because of their supply chain for how they acquire their beans and roasts and and all the things that they have. Right. So so it it exists in multiple markets.
Speaker: Is it necessarily a net negative to the consumer? That's probably the bigger question that's got to be asked is, you know, does someone pay less or more because of that vertical integration? um and And that's where it gets complicated because if, you know, I think the FTC has investigated this. and A lot of folks have tried to get to this and investigate this.
Speaker: But um and also, I guess what maybe gets missed is the horizontal integration. So like CVS didn't become CVS with 11,000 locations by starting 11,000 locations. No, in the 1990s and early 2000s, they were buying everybody. So like ah yeah that's horizontal integration when a pharmacy buys another pharmacy.
Speaker: And so interestingly enough, no one's complaining about the horizontal integration, because if I open Joe's pharmacy and I'm successful, one of my exit strategies is to sell to another pharmacy. That's like I can then sell that. And so it's fascinating that we want to then we want to limit vertical, but then we want to not say anything about horizontal when both can have competition implications. And then back to like, how is it good? Yeah, I mean, like the biggest part of your business is responding to an employer to provide, you know, pharmacy benefits, a lower price or combination of quality and price, or maybe it's not just price, but providing good benefits at the best possible price.
Speaker: Controlling multiple parts of the supply chain reduces friction costs. It allows you to integrate technology. It allows you to see the whole thing. What are we also seeing? Like when we're maybe ignoring as we're focusing on the CVSs and Optums and Express Scripts, we're not talking about university healthcare care systems. ah University healthcare care systems are incredibly vertically integrated. And then one of the most popular people currently That's anti PBM right now is ah someone by the name of Mark Cuban, who started his own pharmacy and his entire business model is vertical integration. He wants to manufacture the drug, distribute the drug and then give you a discount card as well. Like, so it's interesting that people are on one hand trying to advocate for anti vertical integration.
Speaker: But on the other hand, like absolutely pursuing vertical strategy. So so anyway, it's complicated. I find it fascinating because i do think a lot of folks that are using the terms vertical integration maybe haven't spent a lot of time, you know, evaluating it in other markets, evaluating other parts of their lives where they actually benefit from vertical integration. I think that's a great point in thinking about this from a market perspective and looking outside of our bubble in terms of pharmacy and healthcare. care And I think so many of these issues are are common in other sectors. And so I think that's that's great advice for our listeners to maybe expand the the scope of how they're looking at this issue.
Speaker: So I wanted to talk a little bit about policy and reform because there's a lot going on in that space. And it would just so happen here in Virginia, the budget was finally passed. And that includes funding and implementing or giving the authority to create Virginia's single pharmacy benefit manager that is now an official organization.
Speaker: law here, which is sort of purported to be an important step to transforming how Medicaid pharmacy benefits are administered across Virginia.
Speaker: So I'd love to get your thoughts on some of these types of approaches that have been passed through legislative action in a number of states. And also maybe give our listeners a sense of what's going on at the federal level right now as it relates to ah policy and reform issues um related to PBMs.
Speaker: Yeah, i was actually just wrapping up a paper this morning trying to describe both the Express Scripts FTC settlement as well as the Consolidated Appropriations Act or CAA that was the the big sweeping legislation that included PBM reform as well. So there's a lot going on. My spring has been quite busy. And then on top of that, you know, the launch of direct-to-consumer platforms like TrumpRx and these other components. there's a lot of things happening in this space.
Speaker: If we back up a second and maybe this is what, you know, i hope the listeners can, you know, think about and and I try to, you know, instill this in my students. At the crux of all of this, when we think about insurance or paying for pharmaceutical, when when when a new drug comes on the market, we incentivize You know, drug companies to bring drugs to market by giving them exclusivity for X number of years where they may not face competition if there's no other companies competing. And I and i often use ah drugs like Trikafka and Cystic Fibrosis. That's Vertex owns pretty much the entire Cystic Fibrosis market.
Speaker: They have no competition. They do not offer rebates. They can charge 300K or so a year for these products for patients and insurances to pay. And we will pay them.
Speaker: When I was a student in pharmacy school, a CF patient had a life expectancy maybe in their twenty s or thirty s These drugs are game changing for these families and patients. They add, like I had my my CF collaborator was excited the other day. was talking about just how, you know, he he he was, it's got to sound terrible, but he was like, one my patients had a heart attack. He's like, I can't believe my patients are living long enough to face cardiovascular problems later in life. You know, he's like, in my lifetime, I never thought I would see this. And that was kind of a morbid, but like way of thinking like, wow, our drug industry is amazing.
Speaker: right But how do we as society pay for it? And so we grapple with this. And if the pe if the reforms that are coming through are focused solely on the negotiator or the group that's like trying to negotiate the prices down on our behalf.
Speaker: Without addressing maybe the the component of the intellectual property, the market exclusivity, how we finance pharmaceuticals, how we, you know, those things, are we ever really going to bring the prices down? You know, like that's that's probably the bigger conversation is how do you incentivize the drug companies to bring drugs to market, do the research that's needed,
Speaker: and then incentivize prices that are based on value. And then once we all agree that a drug provides value, we pay for it, right? And and we pay for it in a way that doesn't give the patient this exorbitant out-of-pocket cost that they can't even afford, right? And my my fear is that the unintended consequences of the reforms is that if you reform one actor in the supply chain without looking at all the actors in the supply chain,
Speaker: the value may never actually reach the patient. It may just get absorbed by the other actors. And again, I want to, I do think we have to remind the listeners too, that like, I do think we are better now in 2026 than we were in say 2006 or 1996. Like we have patients living longer, experiencing better quality of life than, than we would have experienced 20 or 30 years ago. So even though in all this chaos and stress, uh, we maybe need to reflect on, Hey, we, we are doing, we are doing better. Yeah.
Speaker: think that's an important note. So how should then pharmacists be engaging in this conversation? what What advice would you give to our listeners who, again, have maybe heard lots of different things and different perspectives about PBMs or through their you know personal experience, grown to be quite frustrated with the current system and and wanting to either advocate for change or or get involved in that in the advocacy aspects? what What advice would you give folks?
Speaker: Well, so first I get excited to hear any of my students interested in it. I was that student. my My grandmother struggled to pay for her medications in the 1990s and early 2000s before Medicare Part D. And I had a passion for drug pricing when I didn't know how to articulate it. I didn't know health economics was even a field. And so my high school guidance counselor called his guidance counselor said, hey, youve become a pharmacist. you know and So I buy but That that ah sort of serendipity ended up in this path. um So I love catching a young student or young or early new practitioner pharmacist who has a passion for this, maybe hasn't figured out that there's actually a space for pharmacists in in this world. Maybe it takes a little bit more like our pharmacy schools often aren't equipped to provide.
Speaker: a lot of detailed information in our curriculum on health economics, health policy, and these things. And and students may not get exposed to maybe the the stuff that they need to learn and read. And so I would ask students to, you know, maybe start with a yeah listening to podcasts like this, listening, you know, listening to different opinions. Be very careful with the sources of information as you're reading, like read with a critical thinking lens, like try to think carefully,
Speaker: Why is this person writing this way? Are they representing ah one of the particular stakeholders, right? Do they have something to gain if someone else loses? Trying to find a source of truth, it is complicated in this space. And and and believe me, I have been very frustrated with this ah this space because it's hard when you Google these topics, what comes up or like the...
Speaker: the anti-PBMs or the pro-PBM, like like either either pro or anti, and the same with the drug industry. It's either pro-industry or anti-industry. So I just would ask my my pharmacist to look through a critical lens. I teach the counterfactual kind of approach, like remove something entirely and then what does it look like, right? So if you think this is bad, remove it and then imagine what that world looks like. And then, and then you know, find mentors, you know, like ah VCU legends like Dave Holford or people that I've always looked up to, finding people that that you can reach out to, hopefully find mentors in the space that you can learn from. And and and you'd be surprised how many more opportunities there are in 2026 for a young pharmacist interested in this topic. Uh, then say when I was coming out of pharmacy school, like I just think there's a lot of consulting opportunities or, or roles with a nonprofit organizations or think tanks that there's just a lot more out there than I would have ever known when I was a student.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that last point is really important. I think the number of opportunities will only expand from where we currently are. And there's really going to just be, I think, a huge demand for folks that have the knowledge and expertise to contribute to these conversations moving forward. So thanks for sharing that.
Speaker: So to kind of wrap up here, um kind of want to close out and get your thoughts on, you know, through your work and over the years, what resources have you found to be most influential in your thinking about innovation, pharmacy practice, and and even within your scope of expertise as it relates to drug pricing and PBMs?
Speaker: Um, I'm probably a bit of a weirdo in that I do find myself falling down rabbit holes of of information where I'll read a paper and then I'll look at what they're citing and then I'll go to the papers that it's citing or I'll find myself, you know, so starting in one topic in a paper written in the last couple of years. And next thing you know, i'm reading something from the nineteen sixty s I don't know if that's the best way to do it. It's been the way that's influenced me because I just, I like peeling back the onion and finding out like where the original thing came from or where something came from. I guess my my encouragement to other people is to, if you find something that makes you curious and makes you want to read more and interested in learning more and and and you have that kind of curiosity about that topic, then you found something that that that I think you're like...
Speaker: I do this because I love it. I do it because I'm curious. And I think that's my biggest encouragement. For me, it's been maybe more primary literature than say, like, I, as they want to begin with faculty member and started getting asked to help write textbooks, I started seeing the process of how textbooks get made. I'm like, Oh, I don't like textbooks anymore. I'm not the biggest fan of textbooks. So I'm actually like, no, like go to the papers, go read the papers and read the limitations. You know, like as as researchers, we got to do a better job explaining, hey, here's what I did. i did really well. But here's a paragraph of all the things I think could have been done better. And like as you learn the the complexity of how we got here and and and have some humility in that we actually we might have a good idea, but we know like 10 other ways that this idea was bad. You actually can learn in advance from that. So I really encourage trying to find the primary literature. Maybe I know there's so much primary literature out there. Sometimes you can download the PDFs, upload them into your favorite AI and let the AI help you get through it and summarize it. So, you know, maybe there's some strategies there, but really encourage some primary literature searching. No, I love that. you know Follow your curiosity, right? um
Speaker: I pass that message along to our students all the time. And and you're not alone in your approach. I am quite similar. And I think I know for me on my StrengthFinders, context, I think, is my number one item. And it's sort of wanting to know the the precedent and the history of things before making decisions. And I think it seems like we may both share that trait and wanting to know how how did we get here and what can we learn? Because more than likely, um in some cases, right, those primary sources were misinterpreted or miscommunicated.
Speaker: and And, you know, just because it's from 30 or 40 years ago doesn't mean it doesn't have relevance anymore. That's a big lesson that I've learned over the years. right So thinking ahead and in terms of just what's going on in the next six to 12 months for you, anything that you want to share that you're looking forward to, either could be personally or professionally?
Speaker: Hopefully some vacation if you haven't taken any already, but you know. ah we we We do have a vacation coming up. My my wife and i ah play a lot of tennis and golf and those things. So that's actually, ah we've spent a lot more time doing that. Actually, there was ah a moose that just had a baby, ah two babies in a neighborhood recently. One of the benefits of living in Park City is that sometimes we just drive around and go see moose.
Speaker: So there's a definitely a lot of like, I'm enjoying the personal part of my life. But then also I had this really cool opportunity that I'm excited to just see where it might go. So I applied for this healthcare advisory committee for CMS last year and didn't hear anything. And then in December, I got this weird...
Speaker: ah message from the executive assistant to Dr. Oz. Like, can you get on the phone with Dr. Oz on Tuesday? I'm like, wait, what is this spam? Like, what is this? And then, so I thought maybe he was putting me on this committee. So I got real excited. I get on the phone. Now he grilled me for 30 minutes. He lit me up with questions and all this stuff. i was like, Oh my God, this was a real interview. Uh, so I didn't get on the the main healthcare care advisory committee, but I did from that conversation, Dr. Oz liked a lot of the things that i said about, uh, waste and administrative burdens. And so I got put on a working group for CMS, uh, for reducing administrative burden. So we just started out the working group the last couple of months and it's been an interesting group of folks. So trying to see where that, you know, where that might go that might be kind of fun professionally to see if I can, And so that way, you know, I helped CMS in the previous administration and in this administration. i think it's important for me to help both, ah you know, whether it's Republican or Democrat, like how do I just do the best I can to advise them? And so hopefully when I talk to you again, I'll have some good news that maybe we did reduce some of the ah the waste in health care. but I don't know.
Speaker: No, that's phenomenal. And this is definitely a first in that Dr. Oz and Moose ah were mentioned on this podcast. So we'll take note of that. But no, that's very exciting. Congrats to you. I think that's great opportunity and and certainly looking forward to hearing about waste that you're contributing to helping reduce because there's certainly a fair share of that.
Speaker: Well, Joey, thanks so much for joining us and educating our listeners on all things related to drug pricing and in PBMs. Clearly, this is a very ah complex topic, and I really appreciate your insights and helping our listeners maybe expand their perspective a little bit on some of these issues and and how we can try to be a partner in helping improve the system.
Speaker: Please let our listeners know where they can connect with you to learn more about your work. Oh, absolutely. my My faculty page is available. It's public. My email is public. So please feel free. said, if you Google Joey Mattingly, ah ah you'll find my faculty page and you can find out how to contact me.
Speaker: Fantastic. Well, i want to thank our listeners for tuning in to this episode of Voices in Pharmacy Innovation. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, share it with a colleague, and join us next time as we continue to spotlight the innovations that are shaping the future of pharmacy practice and healthcare. care
Speaker: Thank you for listening to today's episode. Voices in Pharmacy Innovation is published monthly. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or by visiting our website linked in the show notes.
Speaker: If you have any questions or comments, you can contact us through our email cppi.vcu.edu. We appreciate your engagement and look forward to having you join us next month.
