NCPA recommends healthcare-reform provisions to White House
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Four policy proposals drafted by the National Community Pharmacists Association will benefit patients, taxpayers and pharmacies, the organization said.
The proposals -- which are featured in a letter to President Obama -- are in line with the White House's upcoming healthcare-reform summit on Feb. 25.
The letter, written by Bruce Roberts, NCPA EVP and CEO, focused on four proposals that may help reduce costs, improve quality and increase efficiency. They include:
- Encouraging greater use of generic prescription drugs by reforming the Medicaid pharmacy reimbursement formula, which would “[assure] both the continued dispensing of lower cost generic medications, and patient access to their neighborhood community pharmacies.”
- Implementing transparency requirements for pharmacy benefit managers that lower drug costs. “Provisions included in both House and Senate healthcare-reform bills that would begin the process of creating transparency requirements for pharmacy benefit managers," Roberts wrote. "This transparency language begins the process of making important reforms to the last bastion of unregulated entities in the health insurance marketplace: PBMs transparency gives health plans and payers important information that will empower them to make sure that PBMs are putting the best interests of the plan sponsor and its enrollees ahead of the self-serving financial interests of the PBMs.”
- Expanding pharmacists’ patient care services through medication therapy management. It is estimated that improper medication adherence “costs the nation’s healthcare system more than $290 billion annually.”
- Providing tax credits to help pharmacies and other small businesses offer health insurance