Douglas Hillblom – Los Angeles, CA

Senior Associate

Douglas Hillblom is a California-based pharmacist with more than 20 years of experience in healthcare administration and policy. He is the founder and president of Arena Healthcare, a California-based healthcare consultancy that advises clients on the interplay between the payer community, public policy, and industry.

Douglas is an expert in drug contracting and drug rebate administration, state Medicaid policy, drug pricing policy, pharmaceutical payment methods, electronic prescribing policy, the 340B drug program, and general state and federal health care policy impacting pharmacy. He has a deep knowledge of database design concepts and analytic tool development as well as strong vendor relationships and management skills.

His professional expertise includes Medicaid pharmacy program administration, drug formulary development and management, prior authorization criteria review and development, pharmacy audit review and criteria development, pharmaceutical contracting and rebate administration, fraud, waste and abuse review, provider relations, electronic health records privacy standards, electronic health information exchange, and pharmaceutical pricing.

Douglas is the Associate Editor in Chief — Market Access Solutions for Specialty Pharmacy Times. He is also a lecturer at the Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy, where he teaches a class on health care financing and reimbursement. And he is an advisory board member of the Council for Affordable Health Care.

In 2015, he was awarded Co-Alumnus of the Year at the Thomas J Long School of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, University of the Pacific. In 2014, he won the California Pharmacists Association Pharmacist of the Year award.

His writing has been featured in the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, Specialty Pharmacy Times, and the California Pharmacist Journal, among other publications.

Prior to founding Arena Healthcare, he was the Vice-President of Professional Practice and Pharmacy Policy at OptumRx/UnitedHealth Group. He also held positions as the Assistant Director of Pharmaceutical Contracting and Strategic Purchasing at Kaiser Permanente and as the Chief of the Medi-Cal Contracting Unit at the California Department of Health Services. He has also consulted for the California Department of Justice.

He has been a Member of the Board of Trustees at the California Pharmacists Association and President of the California Pharmacists Association.

Douglas holds a Doctorate of Pharmacy from the University of the Pacific.