5 questions with Jane Ha

What inspired this research?

Every year, Cencora surveys payers to assess their perceptions and utilization of value assessment information and other value assessment framework topics. While some questions in our survey are consistent to assess trends over time, we also use this opportunity to ask new questions. Part of our poster is reporting results for this new set of questions.

Was there a hypothesis that was confirmed through the research?

We know payers are using many different sources of value assessment information. Sources can vary widely, but we wanted to understand which ones were used the most by payers and which ones they found the most useful. Our hypothesis was that it would be imbalanced and sway heavily towards a certain set of sources, with certain sources being used more than others. Through our research, we found that payers use various sources of value assessment information, but the perceived usefulness of these sources varied. 

What are the key takeaways from your research?

This year, 48 advisors from our Managed Care Network forum completed the survey, which was fielded in July 2023. 

We first wanted to understand who is responsible for reviewing value assessment information and how organizations are training these personnel. The responses suggest that interest in value assessment information is very broad across organizations. More than half of respondents are developing resources for value assessment information internally, whereas others leverage specific external sources, like the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) or the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). 

We also assessed how useful the different sources of value assessment information are and  how they're informing payer decision making, all of which varied widely. Payers reported specialty society guidelines, NCCN Evidence Blocks, ICER Evidence Reports, and Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP) dossiers to be the most useful sources.  

Finally, we asked what we can be done to improve value assessment information in the future. That question was open-ended and generated a lot of different responses, from timely availability to specific types of data. 

Was there anything in the research that was surprising, that you didn't expect, that you found out?

What was surprising is that the people who are responsible for reviewing value assessment information ranged broadly. We thought it would be the same few roles for most organizations. But payers reported a wide range of roles, such as health economists, pharmacy managers, and trade relations. 

What are the next steps from this research?

Given these are a new set of survey questions, it would be interesting to understand trends over several years regarding usefulness of different sources of value assessment information. Will it change next year or in the next couple of years?

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