The Cause and Effect of Pharmaceutical Cost Control on Stakeholders

Stakeholders can help to control the rising cost of pharmaceuticals by compromising on certain issues. According to Branning and Vater (2016), the healthcare stakeholders in regards to pharmaceuticals are the patient, the provider, the health insurer, the pharmacy benefit managers (PBM), the government, and the pharmaceutical manufacturer. Each stakeholder role is as follows: The patient intends to spend as little as possible out of pocket and relies on third party payers for the majority of healthcare costs. The provider wishes to earn income substantial enough to pay back student loans and justify the time and effort invested in patient care. The health insurer needs to generate more in revenue than the company will spend on medical care for members.

The PBMs wants to collect service fees and earns a percentage of savings generated on behalf of customers. The government intends to spend as little taxpayer money as possible while providing the access to care for America’s most vulnerable populations. The pharmaceutical manufacturers wants to generate enough income to earn a profit after recouping research and development and marketing costs (Branning & Vater, 2016).Pharmaceutical Cost Control Assignment In today’s society, all of the stakeholders are straining from the pressures exerted by one another. Each stakeholder is concerned with their own vantage point and how policies can be adopted to benefit them. As a system, every stakeholder that contributes to the US healthcare system does so with the primary goal of helping patients and improving healthcare outcomes, however, their parallel objective to earn a profit has often added unintended consequences and costs to an already complex system (Branning & Vater, 2016). Although patients are the central figures in any healthcare system, they also bear some responsibility for rising costs. Patients may not value healthcare as a service in which they are willing to invest their own money upfront, so they have little incentive to actively participate in reducing costs. Responsibilities for rising cost in regards to providers are related to prescribing behaviors and fee for service. Payers and PBMs motivation is to collect more in premium dollars than they spend on healthcare services for their members (Branning & Vater, 2016).