Assessment of Medicaid MCO Preferred Drug List Management Impacts (Texas)
The Texas Association of Health Plans engaged The Menges Group to prepare an analysis of the impacts of switching from a statewide uniform Medicaid prescription formulary to a model that allows Medicaid MCOs flexibility to develop their own preferred drug lists (PDL). Currently, Medicaid MCOs in Texas must utilize a uniform formulary controlled by the state. In this report, we assessed a model in which Medicaid MCOs have the latitude to manage the covered mix of drugs through their own PDLs. We conducted this assessment using multiple analyses, including a cost per prescription analysis, therapeutic class analysis, and quantitative and qualitative survey of Texas MCOs. This approach is estimated to result in total annual Medicaid savings of $236 million and annual general revenue savings of nearly $100 million. For this reason, a policy change towards the PDL latitude model is recommended. In addition to the report, a presentation summarizing the findings can be found in the Executive Summary hyperlink.