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The Ongoing Step Therapy Debate

By Laura Karas

Senator Lisa Murkowski’s (R-AK) reintroduction this February of a federal bill, the Safe Step Act, has revived the debate over the prudence of step therapy protocols.

Step therapy is an insurer utilization-management tool imposed in response to high drug prices. As its name implies, step therapy requires “steps” before a patient can receive his preferred medication (i.e., the one his provider has prescribed). Typically, a patient must “try and fail” a less costly medication or series of medications before becoming eligible for insurance coverage of the medication in question. In effect, step therapy allows an insurer’s “preferred therapy” to supersede patient and provider preference.

The need for step therapy is closely bound to the problem of high drug prices. But the crux of the step therapy debate boils down to the following: Who should decide which pharmaceutical drugs your health plan covers? You and your doctor, or your insurer?

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