What began as an 18-month $350 million contract with a San Diego firm with ties to former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich has morphed into a 15-month $500 million agreement with the Office of Group Benefits OGB to administer the state’s prescription drug program for more than 220,000 state employees, retirees and dependents.
But details have emerged that raise questions about a possible conflict of interests involving a consulting firm retained by a teachers benefits program in Alabama and OGB in Louisiana which ultimately recommended awarding contracts to the same company by both states.
OGB’s contract with MedImpact was originally for $350 million and was to run from Jan. 1, 2014 through June 30 of this year but has been amended to $500 million and the terms shortened to March 31, which equates to an increase of about 74 percent.
Gingrich launched the Center for Health Transformation as part of an ambitious consulting and communications conglomerate to let consumers, not health maintenance organizations (HMOs), choose their doctors, medical treatments and hospitals. http://hl-isy.com/Products-and-Services/Pharmacy-Benefit-Evaluator/PBE-Abstracts/2012/MedImpact
But Gingrich failed to reveal that his idea would be financially beneficial to drug manufacturers, health insurers and other health care professionals who paid up to $200,000 annually to participate in the center’s operations.
MedImpact was one of those companies.
Gingrich’s taking money from organizations and then using the weight of his name to advance their interests was described as “a massive financial conflict of interest” by Sid Wolfe, director of health research for the watchdog group Public Citizen. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061000484.html
Even former Congressman Billy Tauzin of Louisiana has entered the picture as co-chair of Medicine Access and Compliance Coalition (MACC), an assortment of health care providers who advocate lower drug prices through the federal 340B Program. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/13/billy-tauzin-drugs_n_3719468.html
Section 340B of the Public Health Service Act requires pharmaceutical manufacturers participating in the Medicaid drug rebate program to provide outpatient drugs at discounted prices to taxpayer-supported health care facilities that provide care for uninsured and low-income people. http://www.aha.org/content/13/fs-340b.pdf
Despite the magnitude of the MedImpact contract, it is the company’s connections to Buck Consultants, hired by the state to select the winner from among four proposals for that contract, which appears more than a little questionable.
OGB’s Notice of Intent to Contract for the Pharmacy Benefits Management (PBM) service, obtained from the Division of Administration (DOA) nearly four months after requested by LouisianaVoice—and then only after we filed a lawsuit against DOA—says, “Representatives of Buck Consultants, OGB’s actuarial consulting firm, provided assistance to the (selection) committee throughout the review and evaluation process.”
Buck Consultants, readers may remember, figured prominently in the controversy over DOA’s mishandling of OGB and the dissipation of more than half of OGB’s $500 million reserve fund.
Commissioner of Administration Kristy Nichols told a legislative committee that Buck Consultants had recommended that the state lower premiums for members of OGB, a move that led directly to the evaporation of the reserve fund. Communications between Buck and DOA obtained by LouisianaVoice, however, refuted Nichols’ claim.
Four firms submitted proposals to administer the prescription drug program for OGB. They were CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, Catamaran and MedImpact. CVS was disqualified because of sanctions imposed on the company in January of 2013 by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
Catamaran was the previous contractor but the company and the state have been involved in extended litigation which is expected to continue at least through June 30 of this year.
“As indicated in the Buck report, the proposal submitted by MedImpact has been determined to be the most advantageous to the state…,” said the Notice of Intent to Contract. “Accordingly, the committee recommends that the contract …be awarded to MedImpact.”
The connections between MedImpact and Buck, a global human resource benefit consulting firm that is part of the Xerox conglomerate, however raise conflict of interests issue—a relationship that LouisianaVoice traced back to the awarding of a contract to MedImpact in 2010 to administer the pharmaceutical benefits program for Alabama public school teachers, retirees and dependents through the state’s retirement system.
The Alabama Public Education Employees’ Health Insurance Plan (PEEHIP) board members, lacking pharmacy specialty training, retained Buck Consultants in late 2009 and early 2010 to handle the entire process, including writing the request for proposals (RFP), receiving and scoring the RFPs and making a recommendation for a contract.
Buck handled the entire process and gave the board the choice of contracting with MedImpact which was named by Buck primary contact person Michael Jacobs as having the best of several proposals submitted. The entire recommendation to the board took up a single paragraph in the board minutes.
The employee for the Retirement System of Alabama (RSA) who negotiated and signed the contract between the state and MedImpact later admitted in deposition that he had been involved in a relationship with a female representative of MedImpact.
But it was the relationship between Buck, Jacobs and MedImpact that warrants a closer look.
Even as he was contracted by RSA to issue, receive and evaluate the RFPs, it turns out that Buck, unbeknownst to Alabama officials, was simultaneously under a $50,000 contract to MedImpact. BUCK DEAL WITH MEDIMPACT
Jacobs, in a Dec. 23, 2009, letter to MedImpact Vice President of Business Development Bryan Boda, noted that the term of the contract was from Dec. 24, 2009, through Feb. 28, 2010, but upon written notice, “will be extended for an additional term, as mutually agreed to by both parties.”
Attached to that letter was a description of the scope of services to be provided by Buck which, among other things called for Buck to:
- Provide MedImpact with marketplace information without disclosing anything to identify MedImpact’s proposal;
- Collect competitor information, utilizing the internal proprietary Buck database of vendor information and drawing upon Buck’s “extensive data base” on PBM industry practices as well as outside public sources;
- Develop a competitive employer marketplace analysis;
- Present its final report during a final meeting with MedImpact at its (MedImpact’s) corporate headquarters.
It should pointed out that attorneys for three Alabama pharmacies excluded from participation in the prescription drug program for the teachers found it necessary to obtain the letter of agreement between Buck and MedImpact from Buck after MedImpact refused to provide the information.
The discovery of the contract between Buck and MedImpact during the time Alabama was in the process of selecting a prescription drug administrator for PEEHIP immediately raises the question of whether a similar arrangement existed between the two during the time Louisiana was selecting an administrator for OGB’s prescription drug benefits program.
An email to Buck Consultants posing that question was not answered.
MedImpact also refused to divulge what it was paying for prescription drugs, revealing only what it was charging Alabama. In one case, attorneys for the three pharmaceutical companies did obtain a document showing that MedImpact paid about $26 for an amoxicillin prescription but charged the state $96.
That, of course, also raises the question of how the billing is done by MedImpact for OGB. Does MedImpact pass along a 300 percent mark-up to OGB at a time when the state is, for all practical purposes, broke? MedImpact calls itself a transparent company but like our “transparent” governor, it has not been forthcoming thus far with details about what it pays for prescription drugs or about its contract with Buck Consultants.
And at the other end of the spectrum, it appears that not nearly enough hard questions have been asked by officials—either in Alabama or Louisiana.
After all, how can it be considered an acceptable practice for Buck Consultants to contract with a state to issue an RFP, evaluate the proposals and make a recommendation to award the state contract to a firm already contracted with Buck Consultants for Buck to collect competitor information?
Transparency apparently has many meanings. Its meaning depends, apparently on who is asking what of whom. Some things, people, corporations, etc. are more or less transparent, depending of course on who is asking what of whom. Or so it seems.
It all comes down to your last paragraph, I.e., “After all, how can it be considered an acceptable practice for Buck Consultants to contract with a state to issue an RFP, evaluate the proposals and make a recommendation to award the state contract to a firm already contracted with Buck Consultants for Buck to collect competitor information?” And as to the transparency which is as clear as MUD, why do Legislators and the people of Louisiana put up with the mud thrown in their face each and every day? Over and over and over again. Thanks Tom for another informative article and a small part of “Louisiana Mud.” (Unlike Mississippi mud which is easier to swallow than Louisianas.)
More evidence of our new gold standard of ethics? Nothing wrong (or even untoward) could have been done here because that is clearly [transparently] impossible in this administration.
I stongly encourage all to read “America’s Bitter Pill” by Stephen Brill. The Republicans have enough $$ from the PAC’s and other rich folks to destroy this Experiment in representative Democracy. But it is a process and we must never give up.ron thompson
How could an advisory Board not have anyone elected, assigned, or appointed to it that did not have skills in the subject matter? Why always the need to rely on consultants to make the decisions for the Board/Committee? It is obvious that virtually all appointment of members to Boards is done so as a political contribution reward. And that, dear friends, is how we the taxpayers reimburse the political contributors on behalf of the recipient politicians.
Or was it this one???
[…] Louisiana […]