We are happy to announce the annual market check process for improvement of our CVS Caremark Master Contract is complete. Across the board, membership will save $11.2 million and it will result in an additional 4.3% overall savings for our members.
Annual Market Check Process
As a result of our 2019 contract negotiations, we incorporated language into our agreement to allow for an annual market check. Our base agreement with CVS Caremark contains pricing enhancements for each contract year. However, because of the rapidly changing marketplace and tremendous Cooperative growth, we wanted another opportunity to annually review our pricing to make sure we bring our members the most competitive rates.
Highlights of Contract Improvements Effective January 1, 2021
- 4% overall Cooperative-wide savings
- 7% increase in guaranteed rebates
- Enhancement of rebates with emphasis on specialty
- Increased specialty pricing and guarantees
- Improved brand-name guarantees
- Higher generic dispensing rates
- Expansion of National CooperativeRx clinical management
- Transition of HIV Network to CVS Caremark to support specialty copay card programs
Independent Clinical Management
The Cooperative continues to believe our independent clinical management must closely relate to pricing enhancements to help our members manage their trend. As part of the market check process, we also negotiated the ability to build on the management strategies allowing the flexibility to remove high-cost, low-value products for our members; we were able to achieve these enhancements with no reduction to existing rebate guarantees.
Contract Extension
Although an extension to the current agreement with CVS Caremark was offered, our belief is our best results for 2022 will come by undertaking a competitive request for proposal process for our membership. The Cooperative will begin these efforts shortly with additional updates later this month.
No Action Required
For members, this savings is automatically applied, and no action is required on your behalf. If you have any questions about our market check process, please contact your National CooperativeRx account manager. Thank you for being a member and/or partner of National CooperativeRx.
