AJMC® in the Press, August 7, 2026

The article, "Upper Payment Limit Implementation: Risks for Patients, Pharmacies, and Providers," published in the July 2026 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®), found that as of January 2026, 4 states with prescription drug affordability boards had upper payment limit authority affecting over 1000 independent pharmacies, with half of surveyed payers anticipating increased utilization management and up to 53% anticipating increased patient cost-sharing on affected drugs.

In its article, Bioxconomy leaned on this AJMC commentary's warnings about formulary removals, expanded prior authorization barriers, and reimbursement uncertainty for pharmacies and providers to make its case that state drug price caps may undermine patient access despite their affordability goals.

The study, "Geographical Access to Preferred Pharmacies in Medicare Part D," published in the July 2026 issue of AJMC, found that approximately 32% of zip code areas nationwide lacked a preferred pharmacy within acceptable distance thresholds as of 2024, with rural Medicare beneficiaries facing significantly longer distances to preferred pharmacies than urban beneficiaries.

Medical Daily covered this AJMC study, using the roughly zip-code access gap and the pronounced rural disadvantage to support its argument that geography determines what Medicare beneficiaries pay for identical prescriptions under Part D's network design.

The study, "Biosimilar Interchangeability and Substitution in the US: What Comes Next?," published in the April 2026 issue of AJMC, found that biologic drugs comprise only 2% of prescriptions but account for approximately 50% of prescription drug spending, and that as of May 2025, the FDA had approved 75 biosimilars with only 21 granted interchangeable designations.

GaBI Online noted that the analysis "concludes that while reforming these standards is a necessary first step, it is unlikely to be sufficient on its own to transform the biosimilar landscape," to support its argument that state pharmacy laws and PBM reimbursement practices remain significant barriers to biosimilar adoption beyond FDA interchangeability reform alone.

The interview, "Dr Leesha Ellis-Cox Confronts Racial Bias, Diagnosis Disparities in Mental Health Care," published on AJMC.com, noted that African Americans are 3 to 4 times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia-spectrum disorders than White Americans and that only about 2% of psychiatrists identify as African American despite African Americans comprising roughly 14% of the US population.

In its article, Blavity pointed to the 2% share of Black psychiatrists and the 14% share of the Black population documented in the AJMC interview to explore the limitations Lil Nas X may have faced in receiving culturally competent rehab care following his 2026 bipolar disorder diagnosis.

The article, “Patient Portal Messages Outpace Office Visits,” published on AJMC.com, found that patient-authored portal messages rose 153% from 2020 to 2025 across 8 billion encounters on the Epic Cosmos EHR system, while office visits grew just 17% and telephone encounters fell about 6%.

In his Medscape commentary, William G. Wilkoff, MD, noted AJMC’s article and that the data reflect "a structural increase in total communication on both sides of the patient-clinician relationship, with no corresponding reduction in office visits or telephone encounters to offset the added workload"—to support his argument that messaging portals have added uncompensated clinician workload without delivering their promised efficiency gains.

The article, “Acoramidis Attenuates Decline in Heart Failure–Related Health Status in ATTR-CM,” published on AJMC.com, is a secondary analysis of the ATTRibute-CM trial that found acoramidis significantly slowed decline in heart failure–related health status over 30 months in patients with transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy, with KCCQ-OS scores declining by 11.5 points vs 21.4 points with placebo (P < .001).

Medical Daily cited this AJMC summary to source the trial finding itself and to report acoramidis's list price of $18,759 per month, using it to frame the drug's clinical benefit against its cost and access barriers for patients.