Boston, Mass. – Abarca, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) that is disrupting the industry with a completely new approach to technology and business practices, today launched Darwin, a smarter PBM platform, at AMCP’s Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Annual Meeting. Darwin is a first-of-its kind technology built from the ground up by Abarca to be fully integrated and user friendly. This technology will be rolled out to Abarca’s PBM service customers and is available as a standalone software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering for health plans and other PBMs. Payers of any size will now be able to implement their own turnkey PBMs powered by Darwin technology, and fully supported by Abarca’s services and expertise.
“We engineered Darwin to be modern, cloud-based, secure, flexible, and unimaginably efficient. The era of navigating disconnected legacy systems, waiting years for enhancements, and building spreadsheet-based workarounds is now over.” said Jason Borschow, Abarca’s Chief Executive Officer. “It’s hard to believe, but most of the PBM platforms used today date back more than two decades and they haven’t changed fundamentally since then.”
Darwin integrates claims processing, pharmacy network, prior authorizations, clinical programs, Medicare and Medicaid compliance, rebate management, and other critical PBM work streams into a single, fast, friendly interface. Invoicing, payments, and all other financial functions can be seamlessly integrated into a PBM’s general ledger, fully automating the accounting cycle, and dramatically reducing overhead.
Users of legacy systems know the frustrations of having to toggle between programs and screens, retyping data, coding tables and drug lists, and waiting for upgrades and fixes to address basic business and compliance needs. Darwin ends these drains on accuracy, productivity, and morale. The platform is cloud-based, mobile friendly, secure, permission based, and point-and-click easy.
For Medicare and Medicaid plans, Darwin is a game changer. Clinical management tools, deep analytics, and compliance support are integrated with automated letter generation, outbound IVR, and care management workflows to increase member engagement and improve star ratings, without adding man hours. It helped one plan go from two to five stars in just two years.
At AMCP, Abarca was selected to present the results of a program in which, using Darwin, it was able to help one health plan reduce the cost and improve the effectiveness of treating Hepatitis C. Using Darwin’s advanced analytics and member and physician engagement programs – Abarca increased the percentage of people who stayed on their doctor-prescribed therapy to 94.6% and sustained virologic response, or control of the disease, to 99.4%. This also led to patients and the health plan saving over $1.3 million.
Abarca is a different kind of company and a different kind of PBM. It focuses on delivering a better experience for members and plans, and every single employee is committed to a higher standard of business practices. Abarca was founded more than a decade ago, many PBMs are still using technologies that were already aging when they got into business. They designed their technology from scratch and built it in-house. It is modern, flexible, intuitive, and powerful, and the perfect solution for a PBM or health insurer that wants its own customizable platform but doesn’t have the time, appetite, or expertise to develop one themselves.
“No plan or PBM should endure legacy systems anymore,” concluded Borschow. “It’s time for a better way.”