Reject competitive bid proposal for diabetes items, NACDS urges

ALEXANDRIA, Va. Don’t force community pharmacies to have to bid for the right to sell diabetic supplies to patients enrolled in Medicare, the head of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores asserted yesterday in an appeal to Congressional leaders.

NACDS president and chief executive officer Steven Anderson issued an urgent appeal yesterday to Senate lawmakers, asking them to head off proposals to expand the Medicare Part B competitive bidding program for durable medical equipment to include products sold in drug stores for diabetes patients. In a letter yesterday to Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., and the committee’s ranking Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, Anderson also called on the panel to reject a proposal to cut or freeze at current levels Medicare payments for DME.

Both moves would impede patients’ access to needed health supplies and damage the retail pharmacies those patients depend on, Anderson asserted.

Last year, CMS issued regulations that exempted retail pharmacies from having to bid for the ability to deliver diabetes supplies, and said diabetes drugs sold at retail could continue to be reimbursed based on the standard Medicare fee schedule, rather than at the lowest-price bid.

The changes now under consideration by lawmakers, however, would upend those regulations and broaden the government’s competitive bidding requirements to include the kinds of everyday diabetic-care products sold at retail, including blood-glucose testing supplies.

In his letter, Anderson urged the Senate Finance Committee to reject the changes.

“Unlike other DME products, the effects of the competitive bidding program on diabetic supplies and patients were never evaluated during the competitive bidding demonstration projects,” he noted. “Therefore, expansion of the program to include diabetic supplies sold at retail stores should not be pursued, in the absence of any data to ensure patient access, safety and savings to the Medicare program.”

In addition, NACDS urged the Committee to recognize that DME fee schedules have not been updated since 2004 to properly reflect the cost of providing DME products and services. 

“Some have proposed that the DME fee schedule be cut or the fee updates remain frozen as an offset for a delay of the competitive bidding program,” Anderson noted in his letter. ”We are deeply troubled by such a proposal as any cut and/or freeze … will create significant confusion, frustration, and access problems for Medicare beneficiaries and their healthcare providers.”