A group called Health Transformation Alliance consists of 40+ major corporations who have come together to do one thing: fix our broken healthcare system through data analytics, pharma solutions and health consumer engagements.

Health consumers must also unite together to effect a change in our health care system. Email motherhealth@gmail.com of your suggestions and tips to fix our health care system.

Connie Dello Buono

The following are from the http://www.htahealth.com/about/ site.

Greater Marketplace Efficiencies

Today, employers rely on a broad range of organizations to procure health care services, and often these organizations serve interests not aligned with the interests of employers and the people they employ. The Alliance will pool the resources and expertise o f its member companies to gain  leverage and create an organization whose sole focus will be to ensure the health care needs of employees are being met more effectively and efficiently.

 Learning from Data

Employers have become experts in studying data and trends to
make wise business decisions in a variety of areas. The health care marketplace lags
behind other sectors in using data to identify best treatments, good outcomes and cost
reductions. By pooling aggregated data that doesn’t identify individual patient
information and using it to improve the effectiveness of the health care supply chain,
the Alliance anticipates delivering better health care while reducing costs.

 Educating Employees

Employers have considerable experience working directly with their employees to explain company wide benefits, but the complexities of health
care are difficult and costly to explain. By pooling their knowledge and resources,
members of the Alliance will develop better and more helpful tools to educate
employees about their health care choices. Helping employees to better navigate these
choices will result in better outcomes, increased savings and more satisfied employees.

 Breaking Bad Habits

Patients, along with the health care system, too often pay for
prescription drugs that are not the most cost effective for their care. Doctors, along
with patients, aren’t always armed with a full range of facts concerning best outcomes
and pricing for pharmaceuticals. This happens in part because incentives currently
built into the delivery system have made it habitual to merely pass costs along. The
Alliance will seek to change costly and inefficient purchasing and contracting
systems that don’t deliver better health care results, but do drive up health care costs.

New Pharmaceutical Partnerships

In February, HTA launched partnerships with CVS Health and OptumRx to change how companies provide prescription drug benefits through prescription plan management companies, known as pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).

Rather than having individual companies contract with these PBMs, HTA forged an innovative approach with CVS and OptumRx that focuses on partnerships and transparency, resulting in lower prices for the same medicines and allowing HTA members to achieve considerable savings. These changes go beyond what group purchasing coalitions have been able to achieve. It’s a path-breaking approach for the way companies deliver prescription drug benefits to their workers.

In addition, the HTA will work with its PBM partners to create better formularies, which list the prescription drugs commonly agreed to be used by the medical profession and the insurance industry.
The solutions will not only result in increased savings to HTA member companies, but also help individuals select the most appropriate and cost-effective prescriptions to meet their medical needs.

“Beginning January 1, 2018, these prescription drug reforms alone are projected to save participating HTA member companies, their workers and, in some cases, retirees, at least $600 million over three years,” said Andrews. “We are moving ahead with similar reforms in payments for other medical care and are confident that the HTA can change the way health care is priced so our members and workers can benefit.”