Medicare and Medicaid struggles foreshadow a rocky health insurer earnings season

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Express Scripts overcharged your mail carrier

Express Scripts, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the country, overcharged U.S. Postal Service employees by a whopping $45 million for their prescription drugs during a recent five-year period, according to an under-the-radar federal audit that my colleague Ed Silverman and I reviewed.

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This part really caught our eyes: The biggest source of overcharges was tied to drug rebates that should not have been kept by Ascent Health Services, the opaque, Swiss-based group purchasing organization that is a sister company to Express Scripts. The company agreed to fully refund all of those retained rebates. Now, just imagine all the other companies that aren’t having their prescription drug contracts reviewed but use these GPOs as part of their drug benefits.

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