Independent pharmacy lobbyists renew call for health-reform relief

ALEXANDRIA, Va. Weighing once again into the health-reform fray on Capitol Hill, the National Community Pharmacists Association Wednesday reiterated a long-standing plea to Congress for relief as the U.S. Senate and House work to craft a compromise on the health-reform bill to send to the White House.

The appeal came in a letter, sent by NCPA EVP and CEO Bruce Roberts, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Among NCPA’s top priorities: a reasonable minimum payment system for Medicaid prescriptions, new curbs on pharmacy benefit managers and a pass on new Medicare restrictions governing the sale of durable medical equipment and diabetic supplies.

The independent pharmacy lobby is asking the House and Senate leadership to include those elements in a final version of health-reform legislation. Although Congress has yet to reconvene later this month, Pelosi and Reid have maintained a high-profile effort to reconcile the reform bills passed late last year by both houses of Congress.

“Community pharmacists are ready and willing to help improve health outcomes and lower costs,” said Roberts. “We greatly appreciate the bipartisan backing in both chambers for reforms that support community pharmacists.

“The recommendations we present here will make a good thing even better for patients,” he asserted in his appeal to both leaders. “We will continue working with Congress in hopes of enacting these proposals.”

Among NCPA’s specific requests:

• A reform of Medicaid’s Average Manufacturer Price (AMP) reimbursement system for generic drugs, and the adoption by Medicaid of the Senate’s proposal for a federal upper limit of no less than 175% of the weighted average AMP. “Anything less could force many independent community pharmacies, which care for an extraordinarily high number of Medicaid patients, out of the program,” noted the group.
• The adoption of both House-passed transparency provisions for pharmacy benefit managers operating in the proposed health insurance exchange, and Senate language extending the reporting requirements to Medicare Part D drug plans;
• Inclusion of the Senate’s proposal to exempt retail pharmacies from Medicare’s “burdensome, duplicative accreditation requirements” for the sale of durable medical equipment and supplies, including diabetes testing kits.

Roberts also urged Congress to “support all House- and Senate-passed provisions expanding the community pharmacist’s ability to provide medication therapy management services,” according to today’s letter. Pharmacist-administered MTM, he noted, would help “maximize the patient’s adherence and therapeutic benefit while lowering the cost of inappropriate prescription drug use — estimated at $290 billion annually.”