Catamaran's SECURE significantly reduces compound medicine spending

Catamaran Corp. recently announced that its Safe & Effective Compound Use Reassurance Effort (SECURE) reduced spending on compound medication for its clients by more than 70 percent over one year.

While reducing spending, SECURE also protected patients from common risks associated with products in the compound drug category.

Catamaran's SECURE, one of the first programs of its kind, provides clients with a full menu of services aimed at addressing compound safety and cost concerns while also guaranteeing reasonable access and reimbursement for compound medications when clinically appropriate.

"Through SECURE, we have achieved significant savings for our clients by ensuring appropriate use, as well as safety and cost-effectiveness, of compound medications – a hot topic in health care today," Catamaran senior vice president and chief medical officer Sumit Dutta said. "Compound medications play a critical role in helping patients with certain conditions get and stay healthy, but due to the nature of how they are produced, strict protocols need to be in place to ensure safety and cost-efficiency."

To help manage their rising compound drug use and costs, an employer client with more than 40,000 members applied SECURE program elements, including rigorous prior authorization criteria, exclusion of compound kits and lower price limitations. Through the implementation, the client achieved almost $290,000 in savings from the previous year.