
Eric Porter
VP of Sales at SmithRx, a pharmacy benefits provider, and guest on SHRM's Honest HR podcast discussing pharmacy benefit costs.
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Sep 29, 2026
Getting Value from Pharmacy Benefits in a High-Cost Era
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Nicole BelynaHOST
And as you mentioned, attracting, potentially attracting talent, right? So why is that balance particularly challenging when it comes to pharmacy benefits?

Eric PorterGUEST
Indications are continuing to rise as far as potential uses for some of these high-cost specialty medications that are out there.

Eric PorterGUEST
There's new drugs always coming to market, and so balancing the employee experience with cost is extremely important to keep in mind, right? Ultimately, it's a self-funded plan, so you can make those choices.

Eric PorterGUEST
You can have those elections as far as what you're going to want to offer for your employees.

Eric PorterGUEST
When does it make sense to make an exception? It always seems to be the CEO or the president or someone that has an exception that wants to stick on certain drugs or medications for the plan.

Eric PorterGUEST
At what cost? Is that going to be worth the employee experience or not? What we try and do at Smith is always look at drugs to obtain those prescriptions at the lowest net cost possible and pair that with a stellar member experience of both educating the end user, the end employee or member on the plan and also the employer to ensure that we have a good balance between the communication that's happening all the way down the line and also have a firm understanding of what the cost is actually going to be.
6 MINS LATER

Nicole BelynaHOST
Right? So how can HR professionals distinguish between a biosimilar strategy that truly delivers the value and one that may not produce the savings that they're actually expecting? I