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[click here]Community Pharmacy Fairness Act Introduced In House
Bill Would Eliminate Take-It-Or-Leave-It Contracts and Improve Convenience, Affordability of Patient Medications
Alexandria, Va. - February 12, 2007
In an effort to allow independent pharmacies to better negotiate on behalf of their patients, Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) introduced legislation Friday that would help level the playing field between the nation’s community pharmacists and the multi-billion dollar corporations that administer the prescription drug plans in this country.
H.R.971, the Community Pharmacy Fairness Act of 2007, would create a narrow exemption to current antitrust law that would allow community pharmacists to negotiate contracts with Medicare Part D plans and giant pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), the companies that operate as drug middlemen to administer the prescription drug benefit portion of health insurance plans.
“Under current law, the hands of independent pharmacists are tied because they aren’t allowed the same leverage as large chains, and others, to negotiate the terms of contracts with health plans,” said NCPA Executive Vice President and CEO Bruce Roberts, RPh. “Passage of H.R.971 would give these small business owners the green light—and the clout—to get a better deal for their patients.”
Currently, independent community pharmacies are offered take-it-or-leave-it contracts by the PBMs and Part D plans. Giant PBMs have voiced concern over allowing pharmacies to negotiate for fear of losing the PBMs’ monopoly over these small businesses that allows them to dictate terms and create windfall profits for their shareholders. If pharmacies were allowed to enter business negotiations, they could negotiate for terms in a contract that could:
- Limit the shrinking and shifting formularies that restrict a patient’s treatment options (formularies are the lists of drugs that are covered for specific groups in a health insurance plan)
- Reduce the pre-authorization hassles to obtain refills or formulary-restricted medications that generate red tape and create hurdles for patients trying to obtain their medications
- Limit the switching of patients to medications that may not be better for them therapeutically, but that earn higher brand-name drug rebates for the PBM
“Community pharmacists are health care professionals who are—first and foremost—patient advocates,” said NCPA President John Tilley, RPh, a pharmacy owner from Downey, Calif. “The Community Pharmacy Fairness Act will give us a cost-saving tool to help patients get their medicines as inexpensively as possible and provide convenient and timely medication access to patients in communities across the nation.”
The National Community Pharmacists Association, founded in 1898, represents
the nation’s community pharmacists, including the owners of more than
24,000 pharmacies. The nation’s independent pharmacies, independent
pharmacy franchises, and independent chains dispense nearly half of the
nation's retail prescription medicines.