09/22/2009 0 Comments Contact Our News Editors

As the Senate Finance Committee considers healthcare reform legislation this week, more than a dozen members of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) Board of Directors are meeting with Members of Congress today to discuss the critical role of pharmacy in reducing healthcare costs, improving quality care and increasing access to vital pharmacy services.

“As the face of neighborhood healthcare, pharmacy provides convenient and accessible healthcare for patients in every state and congressional district,” said NACDS President and CEO Steven C. Anderson, IOM, CAE. “We are pleased that many of our Board members could be in Washington, DC today. Consistent with the NACDS Principles of Healthcare Reform, we have advocated provisions that are essential for cost-effective and high-quality patient care.

The timing couldn’t be more critical as the Senate Finance Committee deliberates on healthcare reform. NACDS continues to urge lawmakers to include pro-patient, pro-pharmacy policies in those deliberations.”

As the healthcare reform debate has developed, NACDS is encouraged that provisions related to three specific pharmacy topics are included in bills currently under consideration in Congress: enhancement of community pharmacist-provided medication therapy management (MTM), which helps patients take the right medications correctly; reform of the Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement system to help maintain patient access to community pharmacy services; and ensuring patient access to durable medical equipment (DME) such as diabetic testing supplies through community pharmacies.

A challenge in keeping costs down is that failure to take medications as prescribed increases healthcare costs dramatically. The New England Healthcare Institute recently estimated that the overall cost of poor medication adherence, measured in otherwise avoidable medical spending, is as much as $290 billion per year, or 13 percent of total healthcare expenditures. Pharmacy contributes powerfully to helping patients take prescribed medications correctly, and that is important for individual well-being and for the public good. By helping to preserve pharmacy access, the increase in the dispensing fee ultimately can help control costs associated with medication non-adherence.

During meetings with lawmakers, NACDS is urging Members of Congress to include medication therapy management (MTM) provisions which can help bring healthcare costs down. MTM can help improve patient care and health outcomes through medication adherence and counseling, preventing more costly forms of care over the long term.

In addition, NACDS urged lawmakers to correct the flawed Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement system. Under current law and subsequent rules by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Government Accountability Office (GAO) estimates that pharmacies would be paid 36 percent below cost for many generic drugs dispensed to Medicaid patients. Four years ago, the Deficit Reduction Act mandated the “average manufacturer price” (AMP) as the benchmark for payment to pharmacies for generic drugs. The law would result in cuts of $8.5 billion for Medicaid reimbursements to pharmacies over five years – a 30% cut.

A temporary delay is in place until September 30, 2009, set forth by the 2008 Fair Medicaid Drug Payment Act (S. 1951/ H.R. 3700). A preliminary injunction that resulted from a lawsuit filed by NACDS and the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) also has temporarily blocked the cuts. Pharmacy advocates are urging lawmakers to permanently fix this system. Otherwise, these cuts could do damage to healthcare access for millions of disadvantaged Americans. Further these cuts could mean insufficient pay and job loss, pharmacy closures, and reduced access to cost-saving generics.

“Pharmacies are essential to healthcare delivery everyday, and the current H1N1 situation is yet another example of just how true that is,” said Anderson. “Pharmacies are integral to the national H1N1 vaccination strategy, and this demonstrates that the accessibility of pharmacy should be tapped, and not jeopardized, through damaging policies.”