Meeting Preview: AMCP 2019

By choosing to attend the AMCP Annual Meeting 2019 in San Diego, California, March 25-28, managed care pharmacists, physicians, nurses, health plan administrators, and other managed care professionals are providing themselves the opportunity to learn together about new developments and practices in the industry. 

Attendees will gain valuable professional knowledge on the latest innovations in clinical, political, and business issues facing the industry. Each session and event offers a chance at furthering education through key expert presentations, as well as extensive time for networking with peers. 

This learning comes at a crucial time as we work to implement challenging health care reforms and find ways of providing more services with fewer resources. In addition, this conference is attended by leaders in managed care pharmacy from across the country and the networking opportunities are invaluable.

In an effort to help conference attendees navigate this year’s AMCP meeting’s massive educational offerings, as well as ensure the most valuable sessions will not be missed, First Report Managed Care has curated a brief overview of several sessions tailored for the managed care professional. Please refer to the final program and meeting website (www.amcpmeetings.org) for the complete list of sessions, speakers, and events.

EDUCATION TRACKS

The AMCP educational tracks allow professionals, ranging from medical directors to nurses, to customize their meeting experience. Attendees can easily use the color-coded sessions to navigate the meeting tracks to get the most pertinent data and insight. Each track contains five to seven unique sessions that do not overlap or conflict with other related events, symposiums, and main exhibitions. The education track sessions are divided into six different paths:

Value-Based Care: The New Normal

The new world of changing from fee-for-service to value-based care is here to stay. Just what constitutes value? How are the contracts between payers, providers, and manufacturers functioning in the market? Find the answers to the questions of the day in this new track.

Business Trends Impacting the Health Care Marketplace

What are the financial, contractual and innovation trends making waves in the health care arena? How is managed care pharmacy impacted and coping with the effects of evolving technology and emerging health care delivery models? This track focuses on the trends that affect payers, patients, and providers as they address revenue and resources in their practice.

Practical Research that Identifies and Illuminates

Annual Meeting 2019 is the place to explore new research techniques, studies, and strategies in the field of managed care pharmacy. Learn in in-depth sessions, plus hundreds of poster abstracts to discover and discuss.

Spotlight on Formulary Management

The foundation of managed care pharmacy is the formulary. Find out what’s steadfast, what’s changing, and what factors will affect your organization’s bedrock over the next five years.

Keeping Up with Legislative and Regulatory Matters

Price transparency. The end of rebates. Health care for all. There are always many ideas and proposals in health care and legislation, but this track shows you where the boat meets the ocean when it comes to federal and state regulation.

Perspectives in Managed Care Pharmacy

Sessions in this track will cover the waterfront of new challenges and continuing adjustments to what defines managed care pharmacy.

HIGHLIGHTED SESSIONS

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

10:00 AM-11:15 AM

Leveraging Technology to Optimize Health Outcomes: Results from Real-World Pilots in Patients with Chronic Conditions

Brian MacDonald, PharmD and Mark Santilli, PharmD, will review the current landscape of patient management programs and opportunities that exist to leverage technology to improve patient engagement. They also plan to discuss the results of two real-world case studies of clinical programs embracing new technologies to enhance patient engagement and optimize clinical outcomes in US-wide patient populations.

2:30 PM-3:45PM

Brand and Generic Drugs in Development

Jeffrey Casberg, MS, RPh, and Leslie Fish, RPh, PharmD, will focus on new and emerging brand-name drugs, as well as upcoming generic drug approvals. Attendees will hear about promising agents moving through the pipeline, their projected time to market and potential litigation delays, as well as their potential value and role in therapy, and likely implications for managed care pharmacy.

4:15 PM-5:30PM

Medicaid Managed Care: CMS Update, Focus on Emerging Standards for Drug Use Review

John M Coster, BS, MPS, PhD, Paul L Jeffrey, PharmD, and Shellie Keast, PharmD, PhD, will discuss CMS and new drug use review requirements related to the Support Act. 

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

8:30 AM – 9:45 AM

Drug Pricing Reform Efforts: The
Blueprint Turns 1 Year Old

Melissa Andel, MPP, and David Wamble, PhD will help attendees catch up on what has happened, what has been proposed, and what we might expect as looking toward 2020, related to the Trump administrations’ actions on drug pricing, CMS regulation, and more. 

2:45 PM-4:00PM

Evolving 340B Program and its Impact on the Payer and Health Systems Landscape

Linda R Bolland, PharmD, MBA, and Dominic Galante, MD, MS, will explore how key stakeholders are responding to the changes, what types of strategies, tactics, and tools are being adopted to address 340B induced revenue gaps, and technology or digital services leveraged to promote transparency in the drug discount program.

4:30 PM-5:30 PM

The Current Status of Safe Harbor
Protection for Rebates: Is the End Near?

Ross D Margulies, JD, MPH, and Jane Guo, PharmD, MBA, will provide an up-to-date summary on the recent proposal from HHS to eliminate safe harbor protections for rebates to PBMs. As stakeholders debate the relative merits of the proposal, there remains significant controversy on the anticipated impact of the rule.

Thursday, March 28, 2019

8:00 AM-9:15 AM

Strategies for Staying Ahead of Specialty Drug Trends: Focus on the Medical Pharmacy Benefit

Eric McKinley, PharmD, and Carly Rodriguez, PharmD, will highlight the current trend drivers for specialty drugs on the medical pharmacy benefit and the tactics managed care organizations are using to impact the medical pharmacy benefit. The presenters of this session will use real-world case studies and outcomes to demonstrate these tactics.

11:15 AM - 12:30 PM

Budgeting for the 2021 Specialty Drug Spend 

Susan Trieu, PharmD, will discuss specialty pharmaceuticals in the pipeline, their likely place in therapy, strategies for formulary management, and the products’ expected budget impact, all with a focus on the most high-impact specialty agents.

SATELLITE SYMPOSIA

In addition to the education sessions at AMCP Annual Meeting 2019, AMCP offers a series of satellite symposia that offer credit for continuing pharmacy, medical, and nursing education. The noncommerical, grant-supported symposia include sessions on managing clinical and cost outcomes in multiple sclerosis, new studies in lipid management, hemophilia clinical updates, and more.

Featured Speaker: Margaret Heffernan

To begin the AMCP Annual Meeting 2019, general session speaker, Margaret Heffernan will speak at the Tuesday, March 26 general session. Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, chief executive, and author. She received an honorary doctorate from the University  of Bath in 2011.

Dr Heffernan began her career as a program producer for the BBC. She then moved to the United States  where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter.

The author of five books, Dr Heffernan’s third book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril, was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the Financial Times. In 2015, she was awarded the Transmission Prize for A Bigger Prize: Why Competition isn’t Everything and How We Do Better. Her TED talks have been seen by over seven million people and in 2015 TED published Beyond Measure: The Big Impact of Small Changes. She is Lead Faculty for the Forward Institute’s Responsible Leadership Program and, through Merryck & Co, mentors CEOs and senior executives of major global organizations. She continues to write for the Financial Times, The New York Observer, and The Huffington Post.

Attendees of ACMP should look forward to her general session on Tuesday.