06/16/2009 0 Comments Contact Our News Editors

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (June 16, 2009) – In keeping with the association’s constructive efforts to enhance health care reform legislation, National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) executive vice president and CEO Bruce T. Roberts, RPh, sent a letter to Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension’s Committee Chair Edward Kennedy (D-MA) today offering five specific recommendations to strengthen the “Affordable Health Choices Act.” NCPA is committed to improving the quality of health care, while reducing unnecessary costs and, if properly utilized, pharmacists offer critical services that can aid those goals.

The recommendations address the grants establishing community health teams supporting a medical home model, grants implementing medication management services in the treatment of chronic disease, requirements for pharmacies to provide health insurance, including a pharmacy exemption for durable medical equipment (DME) accreditation, and certain features of the public plan option. What follows are excerpts from the letter:

With regards to the medical home model provision, “We strongly support the language in this section that would require community health teams to provide patients with access to pharmacist-delivered medication therapy management services, including medication reconciliation. NCPA believes that pharmacists’ services should be an integral part of a patient’s medical home because prescription medications are the primary medical intervention used to improve health and quality of life.”

In terms of medication management services, which allow pharmacists to thoroughly review patients medications, “NCPA believes that more individuals could benefit from the medication therapy management (MTM) services provided by pharmacists, especially those with chronic medical conditions….We support the MTM grant program established in Section 213 because we believe that it will test new and innovative ways for pharmacists to deliver these MTM services to patients.”

In reference to the matter of providing tax incentives for small businesses to provide health insurance, “We appreciate incentives that may be provided through the tax code that would help small businesses defray the costs of providing health insurance coverage. We ask the Committee to keep in mind that some small businesses with a small number of employees have higher average salaries than the typical small business. That is because pharmacies are required to hire highly-trained health professionals that command higher salaries in the marketplace. Therefore, we ask the Committee to consider this factor when determining the average annual salary phase out for tax incentives to provide health insurance.”

In response to an unnecessary bureaucratic mandate placed on pharmacies, “NCPA strongly supports the inclusion of language that is contained in S. 511, the “Access to Durable Medical Equipment Act”, which has been introduced by Senators Tester and Brownback. This bill would provide pharmacies with the same modified exemption from the CMS DME accreditation requirements that was granted to 17 other categories of health care professionals. Pharmacies are among the only state-licensed, state-regulated health care providers now required by CMS to obtain costly and redundant “accreditation” to continue to sell diabetes testing supplies.”

As for the issue of the public plan option, “NCPA recognizes that an intense discussion is occurring in relation to whether a publicly-administered health insurance plan should be established, and what form any such plan should take. We believe that the drug benefit component of any public plan that may be established should be administered by a Pharmacy Benefits Administrator (PBA), rather than a Pharmacy Benefits Manager (PBM).”

To view the entire letter link go to the following link: http://www.ncpanet.org/leggovaffairs/index.php#reform