NCPA endorses Pennsylvania pharmacy audit reform bill

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — The National Community Pharmacists Association is encouraging Pennsylvania lawmakers to favorably move legislation (known as H.B.727) that is designed to "establish minimum and uniform standards and criteria for the audit of pharmacy records."

"This important legislation is based on a simple principle: When a pharmacist dispenses the right medication to the right patient at the right time, as prescribed by a doctor, it should not be a punishable offense," NCPA CEO Douglas Hoey said. "Pharmacists recognize the need for legitimate audits to protect public and private health plans from waste, fraud and abuse. However, pharmacy auditing practices are out of control. Time-consuming, abusive audits compromise pharmacists’ availability to counsel patients. Increasingly, they appear to be more about generating revenue for the middleman than rooting out fraud."

NCPA noted that more than 20 states have enacted similar bills into law and 10 of those states — Alabama, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, South Carolina, Utah and Vermont — have enacted or strengthened such laws in just the past five months. In California, such a measure recently passed both chambers of the state legislature.

Click here to read the letter.

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