April Physician Trends

Pharmacy Benefit Managers

Pharmacy Benefit Manager discussion among HCPs showed a dramatic rise in April as doctors highlight PBMs as a driver of rising costs and inequities in the health care system.

The PBMs, you see, are middlemen with colossal influence over which manufacturers of medicines survive or die. PBMs define the formulary, the list of drugs that are “covered by” insurance.

- Marion Mass in Bucks County Courier Times

PBMs continue their upward trend with top 1.5% podcast Relentless Health Value bringing additional depth to the role PBMs play.  Mark Cuban's Cost Plus Drugs is seen as one solution to the problem; however, HCPs have not really picked up on Cost Plus Drugs with only a handful of mentions.

Paxlovid

Pfizer's Paxlovid treatment for Covid-19 saw rising discussion among HCPs in April.  Conversations were up due to increasing availability of Paxlovid as cases continued to tick up into May.

Worked telehealth today. A patient tested positive. Arranged a virtual visit. I ordered Paxlovid. Before we ended our visit the pharmacy had texted her to arrange delivery in a few hours. All for free. NYC’s Paxlovid program has been exceptional & should be a model for others.

- Craig Spencer MD MPH

Cardiologists Celebrate IM Mentees

Essential HCP is able to look at which content drives the most engagement within a medical specialty. For April, we wanted to show what cardiologist-created content drove the most engagement among cardiologists online.

Dr Quinn Capers' tweet highlights an increasingly popular theme in HCP discussion: how to address underrepresentation in medicine. If you’d like to learn more about HCP efforts to address URiM, check out our report.