Vendor Benefit Management helps streamline process.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Health on Tuesday announced the availability of Vendor Benefit Management, a new service developed to help CVS Caremark pharmacy benefit management (PBM) clients more easily contract, implement and manage their choice of available and emerging third-party health and wellness benefit solutions both digital and non-digital.

This new service offers clients a seamless way to access negotiated pricing, standardized member eligibility verification in real-time, simplified billing and payment processing, and standardized results measurement and reporting across multiple vendors. Big Health, a digital therapeutics company, is the first participating vendor, and Sleepio, its automated, personalized digital sleep improvement program, will be available to CVS Caremark clients via Vendor Benefit Management.

“As health care continues to evolve, plan sponsors have begun looking beyond the standard medical, pharmacy, dental and vision health benefit offerings, and are increasingly considering supplemental benefits to help improve health outcomes and reduce overall medical spend,” said Derica Rice, president, CVS Caremark, the PBM business of CVS Health. “We asked our clients what they needed and are now proudly easing their administrative burden so their members can more quickly and easily access these solutions that are growing in availability and importance. Our new proprietary service enables us to leverage the sophisticated infrastructure, technologies and processes we have honed as a leading PBM to further benefit our clients and their members.”

Vendor Benefit Management is an open-platform service designed to help CVS Caremark PBM clients manage relationships with digital and non-digital health and wellness benefit solution vendors with which they choose to contract. Moving forward, CVS Health will be actively working to identify and onboard additional vendors to participate in the new service. This may include solutions such as smoking cessation and substance abuse support, care management solutions, medication optimization and adherence, and tools that help members navigate their benefits.

Sleepio, Big Health’s personalized digital sleep improvement program, is accessible via app or web. The program is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which helps individuals make changes to improve their sleep, individualizing the program to their specific challenge. Sleepio’s research is referenced in guidelines published by the American College of Physicians that recommend CBT as the first line treatment for chronic insomnia in adults, ahead of sleeping pills. To date, Sleepio has been studied in eight randomized controlled trials. Improvement in sleep is associated with better outcomes in mental health.

“Given that poor-quality sleep and insomnia affect approximately 30 percent of adults, and is a condition that can impact a wide variety of mental health conditions, we are pleased to be working with Big Health to help make their digital therapeutic product, Sleepio, more accessible,” said Dr. Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer, CVS Health. “Big Health’s commitment to clinical evaluation and research aligns with our focus on applying evidence-based medicine to provide our clients and their members with access to appropriate health solutions and services, and many of our clients are interested in adopting this platform to help increase member access to these types of solutions, including Sleepio.”

“The scientific evidence is overwhelming that improving sleep represents a destigmatized way to improve wider mental health,” said Big Health co-founder and chief medical officer, Professor Colin Espie. “So it’s exciting to see a leader in health care like CVS Health commit to bringing our digital therapeutic for sleep to their clients and members.”

“Millions of Americans suffer from chronic physical and mental health conditions for which there are proven behavioral solutions,” said Peter Hames, co-founder and CEO of Big Health. “These interventions were previously not available at scale, until the advent of digital therapeutics. We’re proud to be working with CVS Health as they help to make solutions, such as Sleepio, available at scale for the first time.”

As the health care industry continues to evolve at a rapid pace, CVS Health is committed to helping to meet the dynamic needs of our PBM clients through our continued effort to bring to market standardized and scalable platform solutions. As part of that, the company plans to continue to evaluate other, enhanced features for Vendor Benefit Management.