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National Rural Health Association endorses prescription drug bills
National Community Pharmacists Association, November 28, 2007
The National Rural Health Association has endorsed three bills that remove impediments to the financial viability of community pharmacies, according to representatives from the National Community Pharmacists Association.
The official endorsement was indicated in a letter from NRHA president George Miller to Charles Sewell, NCPA senior vice president of government affairs. In the letter, Miller stated that the NRHA is “dedicated to ensuring rural Americans have access to quality health care, including the vital role community pharmacies play in delivering prescription drug services.”
The NRHA supports two similar House and Senate bills that address the slow pharmacy reimbursement of Medicare Part D prescription drug claims by pharmacy benefits managers, which can cause cash flow problems for community pharmacies that require loans in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the NCPA. In addition, the NRHA backs companion bills in the House and Senate that tackle the ongoing problem of community pharmacies being offered take-it-or-leave-it contracts by the pharmacy benefit managers. The measures create a narrow exemption to current antitrust law that allows community pharmacists to negotiate contracts as a group, which is essentially the arrangement under which the large, publicly-held chain drug stores already operate, according to NCPA representatives.
To read more details on the bills and to read the full letter announcing the NRHA endorsement of them, visit www.ncpanet.org.
The official endorsement was indicated in a letter from NRHA president George Miller to Charles Sewell, NCPA senior vice president of government affairs. In the letter, Miller stated that the NRHA is “dedicated to ensuring rural Americans have access to quality health care, including the vital role community pharmacies play in delivering prescription drug services.”
The NRHA supports two similar House and Senate bills that address the slow pharmacy reimbursement of Medicare Part D prescription drug claims by pharmacy benefits managers, which can cause cash flow problems for community pharmacies that require loans in the tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to the NCPA. In addition, the NRHA backs companion bills in the House and Senate that tackle the ongoing problem of community pharmacies being offered take-it-or-leave-it contracts by the pharmacy benefit managers. The measures create a narrow exemption to current antitrust law that allows community pharmacists to negotiate contracts as a group, which is essentially the arrangement under which the large, publicly-held chain drug stores already operate, according to NCPA representatives.
To read more details on the bills and to read the full letter announcing the NRHA endorsement of them, visit www.ncpanet.org.
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