Pharmacotherapy Vice Chair of Research Participates in Bipartisan Congressional Fact-Finding Hearing
The College of Pharmacy is proud to share that one of our star faculty members, Dr. Joey Mattingly, PharmD, MBA, PhD, was asked to testify before the House Subcommittee on the Administrative State, Regulatory Reform, and Antitrust of the House Committee about Pharmacy Benefit Managers or “PBM’s”, along with Drs. LoSasso, Frank, and Van Nuys. This was a bi-partisan congressional fact-finding hearing.
Dr. Mattingly shares, “During a time when every issue has become increasingly politically polarized, I endeavored to give my opening statement and answers to the questions posed by the House in an effort to educate, rather than to take any particular side of an argument regarding the role PBMs play in drug pricing and the pharmaceutical supply chain.”
Dr. Mattingly shared some of the questions asked during the experience and his responses below.
- Question (Rep. Fitzgerald, Time 1:35:31) – “Do you believe price transparency rules would be a positive step?”
Answer: “I do think transparency can be a good thing, especially for generic drugs. However, for a very expensive, life-saving drug, it doesn’t matter if a patient knows the price or not, if they have to have it to stay alive.”
- Question (Rep. Bentz, Time 1:54:25) – “What have PBMs have done to cause the trend of pharmacy closures to continue?”
Answer: “Pharmacies do close, but pharmacies also open, which is important for my students to hear that there are entrepreneurs who are still pursuing new pharmacy business opportunities. However, I do think there is a major size and scale challenge for a new business trying to negotiate with major PBMs. But we also need to consider how the retail market is changing.”
- Question (Rep. Scanlon, Time 2:02:05) – “What can Congress do to prevent PBMs from squeezing small pharmacies out of the market?”
Answer: “As a pharmacist, I am not incentivized to tell a patient ‘Not to take a drug’. In other words, pharmacies are only compensated for dispensing medication products. We are not compensated for our knowledge and expertise. We should explore combined ‘fee-for-service’ plus ‘capitated payment models’ to improve how we incentivize pharmacies.”
- Question (Rep. Van Drew, Time 2:27:40) – “Dr. Mattingly, let’s say you are ‘King of the World’ and your one task is to fix this PBM thing. What would you do?”
Answer: “First, thank you for the promotion. One of our biggest problems is that we do not have an agreed upon process to determine the value of all of the processes in the steps in the pharmaceutical supply chain. We do not know how to value health insurance, we do not know how to value the price of a drug, and we do not know how to value the services our pharmacists provide on a daily basis. We can’t agree on how we should value and pay for each of these things.”
To watch the complete video of his testimony, please click here
About Dr. Joey Mattingly
Joey Mattingly, PharmD, MBA, PhD is Associate Professor and Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pharmacotherapy at the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. His portfolio focuses on drug pricing policy, health economics, and patient-engagement where he has engaged policymakers at local, state, and federal levels. Dr. Mattingly served as temporary advisor to the Center of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to support the new “Drug Price Negotiation Program” authorized under the Inflation Reduction Act and was named a Research Fellow for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC). Recently he was appointed to lead pharmacy benefits strategy for the University of Utah Health plan, representing over 30,000 employees and testified before Congress on the role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) in the pharmaceutical supply chain.