Episode 8 – 2017 Year in Review

Marcas Miles (0:09)

Hello, and welcome to the newest podcast for 2018. It’s my pleasure to be with you today. I’m Marcas Miles, Senior Director of Marketing Communications at Employers Health, and a privilege to be able to share so many great new things with you for the near term, but also for the upcoming year, and also get a chance to hear from the one and only Mike Stull, who is our Chief Marketing Officer on staff, but much more than that.

He is certainly an expert thought leader in the pharmacy benefit management space, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to sit down with him and get him to share a little bit of history, historical look back at last year, and some growth and performance, and some great things that we’ve experienced, and then talk about really the outlook for the pharmacy benefit management space for this year, and also what your peers and you are focusing on when it comes to the pharmacy benefit for this year.

But before we get started, just a few housekeeping things. As you know, we always shoot for a keyword.

We share a keyword during the podcast, and if you let us know, circle back with us and let us know the keyword, we’ll enter you into a drawing for a $50 gift card, a Visa gift card, and who couldn’t use that? So we had a winner the last time, Crystal Davis from Diebold Nixdorf. She had the word correctly, so thank you Crystal, and appreciate you tuning in, and appreciate the circle back with us to share the word. Pay close attention later in the podcast, I will share with you the word for this podcast, and if you click on the link there near the podcast recording and be able to share that back with us, we’d be happy to hear from you.

So before I get into too many announcements and some other information, I’ll share with you afterwards, but I know people really like to hear when we have a special guest or a special topic, so it’s my pleasure to be able to sit down with Mike Stull, who’s been a colleague of mine for quite some time now. Again, Mike is titled as our Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for business development efforts. My team works very closely with him for marketing support of both business development, but also member engagement, supporting our internal communications, external communications, but Mike has quite a bit of experience in other areas.

He’s done government relations, government affairs, community relations, he’s helped organize programs and events, published our very first annual report, and now really responsible for the overall messaging and brand of the organization.

Hi Mike, thanks for taking the time to sit down with me, and Happy New Year, here we are in January already.

Mike Stull (3:06)

Happy New Year, Happy New Year Marcus, Happy New Year to everyone out there listening, it’s nice to be back.

Marcas Miles (3:06)

Yeah, Mike, as you know, recorded this podcast before, so he’s an old pro, and I’m sure you’re not feeling nervous at all, right?

Mike Stull (3:14)

No.

Marcas Miles (3:15)

Okay.

Mike Stull (3:16)

Nope, not at all.

I’m just glad people want to hear my voice again.

Marcas Miles (3:19)

That’s right, yeah, people really liked hearing him, so it’s good to have you here. You know, it’s January, we are having Mike today to really just give us some retrospective on the organization, Employers Health, over the last year, maybe some things on the horizon.

Mike presented and opened our recent annual meeting in December and provided some of the information that you’ll hear today, but for those of you who weren’t able to be there, you’ll learn some new things, I think. Mike and I have been here at Employers Health for quite some time. Mike, you’re around the 13-year mark, is that right?

Mike Stull (3:58)

Yep, 13 in December.

Marcas Miles (4:00)

Yeah, Mike is 13 years, and I, in February, will be 11 years. So we’ve seen a lot of change over the years, but as they say, the more things change, the more they stay the same. And I think Mike will attest to the fact that we hold fast to providing an excellent member benefit.

We’re a member-centric organization, and you come first, and that’s really what this is about, and it’s because of you that we’re able to achieve some phenomenal growth that you’ll hear about as we begin things here. And it’s interesting, Mike, that when I began, in the early days, we were just right here in Northeast Ohio, and not even Northeast Ohio, but a little bit south of that, in Akron-Canton. How many counties were we in when you started?

Mike Stull (4:48)

14.

Marcas Miles (4:49)

14 counties in Ohio, and today, we are in what? How many states now?

Mike Stull (4:56)

Marcas Miles (4:57)

33 states. So, very much a national organization, a national footprint, and Mike’s going to fill us in on some of that.

And so, getting to that, Mike had, as one of his brain children, a GPS model, and we refer to that as our internal guide, or our internal GPS. So, Mike, share with our listeners exactly what is GPS?

Mike Stull (5:22)

Yep. Well, I think, kind of hearkening back to the good old days, as much as things change, like you said, there’s still that kind of fundamentals that you have to execute on in order to continue to do the things that you want.

So, in terms of the way we look at it, we say, what’s our guide? Well, what’s our GPS? What helps point us in the right direction? It’s growth, performance, and satisfaction. So, from a growth perspective, it’s always been, for the 13 years I’ve been here, it’s always been our endeavor to grow Employers Health to something more than it currently was at the time, and that still holds true. We continue to grow from a membership perspective.

We continue to grow from a team perspective. We continue to grow from the way that we deliver our services and our value to our members. So, growth has always been a strong part of what we have endeavored to do, and it’ll continue to be a strong part.

You can’t have growth without the other two, performance and satisfaction. So, from a performance perspective, we want to make sure that we’re helping our membership achieve the goals that it’s set out. So, because pharmacy is such a big part of what we do, you know, we look at how our members are performing from a pharmacy trend perspective, and it’s our goal each and every year to get that trend as close to zero as we possibly can.

And there’s obviously a lot of factors that go into that, but at the end of the day, you know, whether it’s renegotiating the contract or the audit or just new strategies to help manage utilization, we’re really aiming for that flat trend. And we’ve been pretty good the last two years in terms of being able to get there. Saw a slight uptick this past year, even though the numbers aren’t quite final yet, but we expect to continue to be in the low single digits.

And then satisfaction. So, I think you would agree that, you know, since we always used to say if we can’t do it first class, we’re not going to do it at all. And that gets to the experience that we want to provide to our members, and that gets to, you know, if we can make sure we hit the performance perspective and helping our members be successful, then we know that, and continue to do that while delivering a good experience, we know that we’ll get high satisfaction scores.

So, satisfaction is a result of all the other things that we’re doing, and we’ve been fortunate to have an engaged membership that has worked collaboratively both together and with us as a team to make sure that we’re able to do the things that we say we want to do, able to have success, and ultimately have high satisfaction.

Marcas Miles (8:40)

Great. Well, thanks for explaining it.

So, let’s break it down a little bit. So, starting with growth, let’s talk a little bit about growth by numbers and statistics and start with, I guess the most obvious one to me is the engine behind it all, our team. And interestingly, just yesterday, I was sharing with one of our new teammates the employee contact sheet that I received when I first started here, and there were six of us on that contact sheet.

And in my inbox was our new contact sheet, and the newest one has, I think I’m hitting it right, 34 employees, of which eight were new last year. So, tell us just a little bit about our team growth.

Mike Stull (9:26)

Yeah.

So, as we continue to add members, we obviously need additional team members to help ensure that we’re delivering the same level of service. And so, we’ve had a lot of growth both in a client-facing perspective. So, our account management team has grown.

We’ve added additional resources to our sales and marketing team. But we’ve also added some operational team members as well, really to continue to help us build the structure that we need in order to make everything work the way we want it to. So, a number of new team members, a lot of individuals who are even just out of college.

So, this is their first work experience. And I started here, I was 24 years old. And so, I hadn’t been out of college too long.

And what a great place to learn. I mean, we talk about learning and the learning opportunities that we provide to our members, but those also translate into a lot of learning for our team members as well. And so, I’m really excited about the team that we put together, excited about plans here for the future in terms of adding additional team members.

And so, I think our membership will be happy with the team members that we’re finding. It’s all about culture. It’s all about fit.

We can teach the business, but we need to find the right personality and the right person to be on the team.

Marcas Miles (11:12)

Yeah, I agree with you on that. And it seems to have served us well to this point.

And you mentioned growing staff to meet the growing needs of our membership. And that includes geographically. And I get questions, I’m sure you do too, about how do we go from having members just in 14 states in Ohio to being a national organization.

I recently heard one of our leaders express that now more than 50 percent of our membership is outside the state of Ohio. And so, could you just provide a brief explanation of how that has come to be? How do we acquire a member, say, that’s in California or Nevada? And then, how have we grown our team to meet the needs of other companies that might want to join our membership?

Mike Stull (12:02)

Yep. So, in terms of, you know, when you think back to the way the coalition used to grow, it was really word of mouth. And it wasn’t until 10 years ago or so we added a formal sales position. And so, there was one of us, me, for a number of years. And then we began to add additional team members to do business development.

So, today, we have five business development team members. They’re spread out across the country. So, we have a couple here in Canton, Cleveland, and then Dallas, Texas, and Denver, Colorado.

At the beginning, I think our opportunity came when HR and benefit professionals that we worked with here locally left the organization and went to work in some other part of the country. And so, naturally, if they had a good experience, they would bring us in at the new company. And that’s originally how we started getting members outside of the state.

And then, through some consulting relationships, we were able to continue to grow that. We partner with other employer-led coalitions that are out there to make our program available to their members. And so, there’s a lot of different ways that we get the word out.

Obviously, our business development team members are focused on calling on employers direct, and then also working with regional consulting houses and some of the national consulting houses to build relationships to showcase the value of what we do. Pharmacy’s got a lot of attention recently in the news. And when I hear about some of the issues that are brought up in the news, I think to myself, well, we haven’t had that problem.

And it’s because of the way we purchase pharmacy for so long. So, we’ve identified these issues. We’re probably one of the most scrutinized contracts in the industry in terms of our deals with CVS and Optum.

Everybody can look at them. Everybody evaluates them. And that’s not necessarily the case with other coalitions.

So, I think just because of the broad nature of who we collaborate with, who we work with, it gives us a different perspective that others don’t have and allows us to make changes to our contract that safeguard us against some of the things that others haven’t found out and probably soon will.

Marcas Miles (14:50)

That’s right. And I guess that holds true or can be proven by the number of new members that came into the organization last year, which, just as a reminder, benefits everyone.

It really helps all of the current members or founding members to grow and to benefit from the different resources, vendors, contracts that we’re able to negotiate. And Mike, tell us, how many did we add last year specifically?

Mike Stull (15:20)

So, 35 new member organizations this past year, which is fantastic. We look at growth in a number of different ways.

The new member count is obviously one of them. But those new members, a lot of them participate or are going to participate on the pharmacy contracts. And that’s about 150 or so million in new pharmacy spend that we’re adding to our contracts.

So, when you think about the industry and you think about the marketplace, it’s all consolidation. You have PBMs consolidating. We have two huge acquisitions.

And obviously, Anthem is changing the way it’s going to do pharmacy. Here in 2020, we’ve got CVS’s bid out for Aetna. You have consultants consolidating.

You have providers consolidating. So, just up and down the supply chain, there’s all this consolidation. And unless an employer is going to go on an M&A tear, you have to find another way to maintain your leverage as an employer purchaser.

And the coalition is a perfect way to do that. And that message is resonating in the marketplace. And when we put the facts out there, groups look at it and say, absolutely, this makes a lot of sense.

Marcas Miles (16:51)

That’s right. And you’ll be able to explain more about that when we get to the satisfaction point. But I don’t want to skip over performance.

And you’ve already alluded a little bit to performance and how the plans have performed. But what can you tell us anything more specifically about performance that outpaces the industry or sets us apart or really benefits all of our members?

Mike Stull (17:16)

Yeah, I think when you look at our model with both CVS and Optum on the pharmacy side, it’s not about recreating the wheel. And I think that some coalitions try to recreate things.

And all that does is set up duplicative services, duplicative infrastructure, which means more costs to employers. So, we’re not interested in necessarily duplicating what someone else is already doing, but rather building a team around that infrastructure in order to enhance the results or to improve the experience that our members have. So, we work with, we do a lot of work behind the scenes with the account teams, the customer service teams at both of those PBMs to make sure that as we’re rolling out new programs, as we’re considering new strategies, that based on our experience working with our members, that we’re making sure that we’ve considered the things that we know are important to all of you before it makes its way to your inbox or makes its way in a presentation sitting across the table.

So, there’s a lot of work that goes into proactively making sure that we’re doing a good job. But also, from a reactive standpoint, we’re not going to avoid having issues. They’re going to come up and our team’s really here to work internally with CVS and Optum to find a solution.

I always say that it’s fun to watch, maybe not fun, but it’s amusing sometimes to watch how different people in the industry react to issues. And some react with threats and some react with solutions. And we’ve always said that we’re not going to be the ones that react by threats.

If you don’t do this, I’m leaving or what. We’re going to react by taking what we know, working with our partners, and coming up with solutions that work for everybody. I like that.

Marcas Miles (19:32)

I like that approach. And I think, obviously, all the things that you’re talking about does set us apart. And I mentioned satisfaction a minute ago.

And we execute an annual member satisfaction survey. And we really pride ourselves and use that as part of our GPS. And Mike, do you want to share with everyone coming off of this latest survey what it told us?

Mike Stull (20:02)

Yep.

So it continues to tell us that our members value what it is that we help them accomplish. And so when we ask the question about overall satisfaction with Employers Health, we strive every year to get, on a five-point scale, at least a 4.6. And so when we looked at the responses this year, we averaged 4.67. So that’s fantastic. Some people say, well, why 4.6? Well, because if everybody gave us fours and fives equally, we’d be at four and a half.

We want more fives than fours. So that’s kind of why we set it at that level. We hold ourselves to a higher standard.

And I’m happy that we’ve been able to deliver on that. We started doing this five years ago. And each year, we set that 4.6 mark.

And we’ve been able to exceed that all five years. And so I’m really proud of that. I hope our team’s really proud of that.

And I hope members are proud of that as well.

Marcas Miles (21:11)

Yeah. And two other measures that are part of that I think are really critical are asking, do you plan to renew your membership and your confidence in Employers Health? And 100% of the respondents said that, indeed, they did plan to renew.

And then additionally, would you recommend Employers Health to a peer? And I think that’s a great testament that also 100% said that they would. And that really drives what we do and affirms the work that we’re doing, the commitment that we have to the organization, to its members.

Mike Stull (21:46)

Well, think about growth.

It all plays back on all of these measures. Everything that we do plays back on one another. Employers want to know what other employers are doing.

Marcas Miles (22:00)

That’s right.

Mike Stull (22:01)

So when we’re out having those conversations, the absolute best tool that we have in our arsenal from a sales perspective are positive testimonials from our existing members. And so we always talk about we can’t be successful in new business if we’re not successful with our existing business.

So it really does play off of one another. And thank you to those members out there that have served as references for us. And have spoken.

We have a number of members who have proactively gone out and talked to other benefits professionals about us. And that’s fantastic as well.

Marcas Miles (22:48)

So while I’ve got your ear, thank you for the GPS, kind of the ear in review.

But I know for a fact because I hear it and I know that you are sought after a lot for your ear. And so just a couple of questions. This is what I hear people asking you.

What’s ahead for the PBM industry? What can we expect this year?

Mike Stull (23:09)

Yeah, well I mentioned earlier that it’s gotten a lot of publicity. Everybody’s writing about pharmacy these days because of the high costs. And certainly with the adoption of high deductible health plans, you’re starting to get a number of patients and employees and their family members who are now experiencing some of these high prices.

And so because of that, it’s gained popularity out there. You hear it in political speeches. You hear it in the news.

And everybody seems to be an expert now about pharmacy benefits and how employers should manage their pharmacy. I think it’s important for employers to, when they read or hear about different strategies, to put it into context. So make sure that you understand where it’s coming from, what might be the agendas of those behind the advice that they’re giving.

Because it doesn’t always align with the interests of our employer members. And so we try to sift through some of this and really give folks an idea of what is coming. And I think we’ll continue to see these high prices.

There was just an article about a number of pharmaceutical manufacturers that took a 9 to 9.9 percent price increase at the beginning of the year. They made a commitment last year that they wouldn’t increase the price over 10 percent, so 9.9. And if that’s going to continue to happen, then employers have to continue to be able to react. And part of that has to do with the PBM that you’re aligned with and making sure that we’re leveraging and negotiating on an ongoing basis for the best contractual terms that we possibly can.

When you look at all the activity going on, it’s all a volume play, as I mentioned earlier. Pharmacy is a volume-driven business. And so it’s in our best interest to continue to grow and continue to gain leverage and continue to think about where are we going to get the most bang for the buck.

I mentioned earlier about executing on the fundamentals. And there are a lot of employers out there that I run across on a regular basis that want to get into denying patients on cancer medications from certain medications, but they’ve yet to put us step therapy in on combo drug or compounds or proton pump inhibitors or ED medications. So if you’re not taking the basic steps in terms of sound pharmacy management, then it is more difficult to manage the higher-cost specialty medications down the road.

So I think that’s one piece of it. The players continue to change. So CVS, OptumRx, Express Scripts continue to dominate the marketplace, but you’re going to see some additional players rise up from the mid-market.

They’re not going to get close necessarily to the big three, but they’ll continue to try to, where they can’t compete on price, they’re going to try to compete on utilization management. And that’s going to be an increased focus for a lot of employers and PBMs this year. How effective are you at the clinical utilization and management to make sure that the right drug’s getting the right person at the right time through the right channel versus just having an open, hey, whatever drug you want, you can have.

It’s just not a sustainable model anymore. So we’ve got to be smart about how we do that so as to make sure that we’re still… The object of a benefit is to get people who need medication, the medication that they need. So we want to make sure we continue to do that but also be responsible for managing the dollars that are out there.

Marcas Miles (27:48)

Yeah. And what from our members’ perspective or just employers in general you know are focusing on, I guess, for pharmacy for this year?

Mike Stull (27:58)

Yeah. Well, specialty continues to dominate.

That’s what everyone wants to talk about, and it’ll continue to be that this year. We have some biosimilars hitting the marketplace. So again, those are not necessarily generics, but they are biotech drugs that are now offering competition where none has been before.

So it’ll be interesting to see what the impact of those biosimilars are. We see so far list prices coming out maybe about 15% or so less than the original drug. So we’ll continue to watch that.

There’s a lot of legal infighting going on on patent law. And so biosimilars for Humira, for example, that’s been approved by the FDA isn’t going to hit market because of the legal fights. So those types of things we’ll continue to watch in specialty.

I mentioned the clinical management. So we’ll continue to evaluate what’s the best way to manage, clinically manage some of these specialty medications. The other big one are these gene therapies that are coming out.

And they treat very rare diseases, a very small patient population. They’re curative in a lot of cases, which is fantastic, but they carry enormous price tags. And it’s not to say that the price isn’t fair, but it’s not sustainable from a financing perspective to be able to pay for these drugs the way that we’ve always paid.

So there’s going to have to be some thought and new ideas given to how we finance some of these remarkable new drugs, because they certainly have a lot of value. It’s just, you know, a single employer on its own is not going to be able to absorb the hit in a single year that one of these new medications, the price tag of one of these new medications.

Marcas Miles (30:14)

Well, Mike, I thank you so much for your insight.

And just a reminder to those of you that are listening, Mike is accessible. You have access to Mike and other experts, if you will, on our team, and likely it’s as easy as an email or a quick call to the individual that manages your account. And if you have a question or would like to chat with Mike, I know he would be very open and welcome to that.

And then finally, just a couple of events that I know, Mike, you’re very interested or an integral part of coming up. Your idea was to produce an Ohio PBM specific conference, which is coming up in March. So I just want you to give your quick take on that.

And then some really popular meetings that have been popular in the past that I think will continue to be popular are PBM trends meetings. So if you will, just real quickly, give us some highlights of those.

Mike Stull (31:18)

Yep.

So the PBM conference in March is a way to bring in some outside speakers and thought leaders on the subject of, again, how can employers best manage the pharmacy benefit. It’ll be a great day, I think, and really give you an idea of what we’re seeing in terms of, again, where the industry is going, what employers can do to ensure that their plan design and their contracting strategies are solid. So these are people that we talk with on a regular basis.

One of the things that I spend a lot of time doing is just talking to other people and trying to understand why does the machine work the way that it does. And so we’re bringing in a number of individuals that I think really have a good grasp on different areas of the PBM relationship in the PBM industry. So really looking forward to that event.

And then PBM trends, I know a lot of our members love to benchmark their plan’s performance against others in the industry. And so, again, these meetings, we try to do them around the country. So we’ve got a couple scheduled already, February 7th in downtown Chicago, February 8th out in Schaumburg, Illinois.

So because of our growing membership in the Chicagoland area, we decided we wanted to do this there. Someone asked, well, should we do it downtown or should we do it out by the airport? I said, why don’t we do both? And so we’ve had a good response to that strategy. Working on a program down in Arizona in the end of February, and then also looking at other locations, definitely in Texas, we’ll do something in the southeast, maybe down around Nashville area as well.

So looking at a lot of different opportunities to get out and not only try to explain, you know, here’s what’s happening and here’s why we think that it’s happening, but also, you know, here are the basic data points that we’re following in terms of how plans are performing. And then talking about, you know, what are those strategies that we should consider? I don’t try to say that, you know, one strategy is absolutely better than another one. I try to lay out, here are the advantages of this strategy, here are some of the concerns of this strategy that you need to take in mind.

And then for your individual situation, you make the decision on, is this right for me?

Marcas Miles (34:10)

Yeah, and I think a good thing to point out is if, you know, if you’re a member and you’re listening in a different area of the geography that’s not necessarily Canton-Akron and you have peers or are members of any type of HR benefits association, you’d think it would be helpful to either help us host or to host PBM Trends in your locale. I think that’s certainly something we would be willing to entertain and host one there. So for now, I will thank you, Mike, I appreciate you being here and I want to wish our members a happy new year, I’ll bet.

Mike Stull (34:47)

Absolutely. Okay. And just one last plug, Marcus, because, you know, I’m about the plugs.

We’ll do the PBM Trends webinars as well this year.

Marcas Miles (34:57)

Oh yeah. So watch for those.

And also, just a reminder, while Mike is here talking about those, many of our programs you can find archived on our website and those are accessible and ready for you to listen to or review, slide decks, et cetera. So thanks again, Mike, for taking the time.

Mike Stull (35:12)

Absolutely.

Marcas Miles (35:14)

So it’s always a pleasure, of course, to be with Mike and to hear his expertise. I really admire him and really rely on his expertise and guidance and it’s really just to be recognized as an organization, as a leader in this space, but also to be able to work with people who help us to be that leader in this space. You heard about all the growth that we have experienced and one thing that really made, I think, the end of the year great for me personally, but I think a lot of our staff, we all got together as teams in our various locales of Canton, Cincinnati, and Columbus and adopted a family for Christmas that we could share our resources with and we worked as small teams to shop for individual family members.

Two of the families consisted of eight individuals. One of them consisted of six and we had a really great experience and it was very genuine, going shopping, wrapping gifts together, making sure that all of those were delivered to those families in time for Christmas. That’s one thing with this team, we really are committed to doing good and on behalf of others.

That was one thing. I don’t know, I just like to bring that to our attention and just say, just to affirm, Mike said, about the numbers and how we’ve grown and why we’ve grown and it’s really just a great testament to that, which leads me to Employers Health being certified and added to the list of great places to work for 2017. Another feat and another thing that is really something to be proud of as a team member here, but also as a testament how we serve you, our client, our member, and so we thank you for giving us the opportunity to do that and you’ll be hearing more about our great place to work certification and recognition throughout this year.

You’ll probably be seeing that as we’re very proud of it and hearing more about some of the reasons why we are recognized as a great place to work. Another accolade that we received this year was from the Association of Fundraising Professionals, AFP, here in Northeast Ohio where I am located and we were given the Small Business Leadership Award. Again, a really great honor for our philanthropy efforts and we were nominated by one of our good friends and partners at Beacon Charitable Pharmacy, formerly recognized as the Prescription Assistance Network of Stark County, recently has undergone a name change and some new branding and is known now as Beacon Charitable Pharmacy.

So we are grateful and have a lot of gratitude to Carol Rizzoletti and her team for making that nomination. For more information on that, you can check out our website and any other announcements or the AFPNEO.org, which I think is the AFP of Northeast Ohio chapter’s website.

We have nominations, speaking of, open now for our annual Excellence in Benefits Award and we would love for you at our member companies to either nominate a peer of yours or if you believe that you are deserving, maybe forward the email or the information that you receive about our Excellence in Benefits Award to a colleague and maybe they would get the hint to nominate you.

But this award really was established last year, we gave the first one, but as a way to recognize those that are doing really great, innovative, different, cost-saving, life-saving, health-saving things at companies that should be recognized. And so the nominations are open right now, there’s a nomination form online and you can find that at excellenceinbenefits.com and you’ll find the information there that you need to submit a nomination. Of course we will be sending out additional reminders and notices, feel free to visit the website that I mentioned or employershealthco.com, you will certainly find information on the Excellence in Benefits Award there.

(39:36)

Another thing that I’m sure you’re interested in are some of our upcoming events. Three of the major ones for the year, two of which you’ll be familiar, the third Mike mentioned when I spoke to him, it’s the one coming up most quickly and that is March 29th and it’s our first Ohio PBM conference. We’re very excited about this, there’s no other conference like it in Ohio and we are bringing together some really brilliant experts in the pharmacy benefit management field.

This will be held in the Cincinnati suburb Westchester, not too far from Cincinnati but very accessible from Columbus or other areas, Northern Kentucky, etc. But even if you’re outside of that area, it’s worth considering making the trip to the Cincinnati area for this conference, it’s March 29th. You can find out more about that at rxexpertise.com, rx and then the word expertise.com, you’ll find all the information there, a lineup of the speakers, the timing, you’ll also find the link to register for that.

Of course, as always, that is free to our Employers Health members. Also in May, you’ll be seeing information coming soon for our 19th Annual Innovations in Benefits Conference, that’s very recognizable, very well attended and again, a great lineup of speakers and information and insights into many of the things that are on your mind and that you are responsible for on a daily basis.

And then again, in August, we’re bringing back for the third year, our Health and Wealth Administrator Workshop.

This has been very, very well received, we get a lot of great feedback and it’s a lot of intense topics that you’re likely responsible for relative to compliance and legal issues, FMLA and such and a not to be missed day long conference, an opportunity for you to be up close and personal to ask questions of some folks who really have the answers for you and that will be coming up in August. So watch for all the information on that. In the near term, Mike had mentioned a couple of PBM trend meetings, those are coming up in February 7th and 8th in the Chicagoland area, one downtown, one more in the suburbs.

We are hosting a webinar, Time for Preventing Employee Rx Misuse, a call for innovations, specifically around opioids and the workplace and that is a webinar, not to be missed. Joel Bennett, who we have had speak at our conference before from Organizational Wellness and Learning Systems, will be presenting that webinar and will be including some statistics or some data from a survey that we deployed in December from you, our members. So you’ll want to hear what your peers are saying and what your peers have done, not done, what they plan to do and what they’re open to doing.

So that is not to be missed, that is February 8th, a webinar at 3 p.m. And then finally, just to recap, March 29th is the Ohio PBM Conference. May 16th is our Annual Innovations and Benefits Conference in Campton, Ohio. And then in August is the Employer Health and Wealth Workshop and that will be on August 21st in Columbus.

So hopefully you’ll be able to notate all of those events. You can find those at employershealthco.com/events and be able to take a little bit of a closer look, find out how to register for those upcoming events. So we would hope to see you at all of those.

And then just a few more housekeeping things before we end. The key word that we would love for you to let us know that you heard is implementation. And some of you may be going through implementation at this time of year, hope it’s going well.

But implementation is the key word. We also invite your questions. So if you have a question that you would like me or find an expert to help me address your question on the next podcast or an upcoming edition, I would love to hear those.

So please send your questions over to us and we’ll be sure to get that answer for you. And if you have the question, likely your peers have that question as well. One question that we got last time on the heels of our podcast was something very near and dear to my work and to my heart is right direction.

And the question was, what are some or are there real world company stories of how they’ve successfully used right direction? Right direction is a depression awareness campaign initiative for the workplace to reduce stigma that exists so that employees will get help and get the help that they need. And you can find out more about that at rightdirectionforme.com. You can always reach out to me. I love talking about it.

I would love to meet with your team to talk about it, have a quick phone call, whatever suits you best. But there are so many real world examples and I am proud to say that we launched Right Direction in May 2013 and I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of companies very closely across this country to address this very, very important. I acknowledge that it’s a sensitive topic, that it’s becoming less and less stigmatized over time.

And so many companies have made this a strategic priority. And in addition to the employer portal on the Right Direction website where you’ll find a couple of published case studies, there are so many examples that we share in our quarterly e-blast from Right Direction. So if you’re not receiving that, simply visit that employer portal on the rightdirectionforme.com website, unlock the materials library, you can just put your name and email address and company in and you’ll start receiving that.

But we profile a company every quarter in that e-blast. And some recent ones have been Puget Sound Energy. We have profiled Zappos.com which was, if not our very first, but one of the very first adopters of Right Direction.

We have profiled Aerojet, GenCorp. We have profiled Kent State University which we’re working on a really big case study with Kent State University right now. And you’ll also see on that employer portal some tips for success or some examples of what other companies have done from packaging gummy bears with a Right Direction sticker to employee events and employee lobby displays of campfire scenes that they’ve used.

So there’s lots of really good examples. And of course, I would be happy to share any of those examples and talk about what other employers are doing. And something I’ve learned is that employers typically, HR and benefits folks, don’t want to be first to do anything, but they want to know who else is doing it and what are they doing.

And then that really gives them confidence to move forward and I get it, it’s time constraints, it’s financial constraints. So please check out rightdirectionforme.com if you’ve not. And more specifically, the employer portal that you’ll see on that website.

Finally, thanks to CVS Caremark, CVS Health, OptumRx, and Anthem for being our annual supporters. We really do appreciate their partnership and to helping to make sure that this broadcast, this podcast is able to be shared with you. Until the next time, we hope to hear back from you.

Send us the keyword, implementation, you could win a $50 gift card. It’s been my pleasure speaking with you today.