Tag: National Community Pharmacists Association

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Community Pharmacists Association is launching a new resource to help pharmacists and patients report possible violations of pharmacy benefit manager regulations to state insurance regulators and push them to enforce the laws on the books. “There have been great strides forward in recent years with comprehensive state PBM reforms and court victories, but patients, small-business pharmacies and taxpayers aren’t seeing all of this progress when regulators...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Community Pharmacists Association and 41 state pharmacy associations are providing input to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Rutledge v. PCMA. The NAIC is developing educational materials on the case for members and state insurance commissioners who are tasked with enforcing state PBM regulations like the 2015 Arkansas law that led to the Rutledge decision. “The Supreme Court decision in Rutledge...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – National Community Pharmacists Association President Michele Belcher participated in a recent Federal Trade Commission-Department of Justice online listening forum on the effects of mergers and acquisitions. Belcher, who is owner of Grants Pass Pharmacy in Grants Pass, Ore., described to FTC Chair Lina M. Khan, Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter and others how the take-it-or-leave-it contracts between pharmacy benefit managers and independent pharmacies lead to harms...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The West Virginia Independent Pharmacy Association and the National Community Pharmacists Association applaud Gov. Jim Justice for signing H.R. 4112, a patient choice bill. The bill gives patients greater authority to choose which in-network pharmacy fills their prescriptions and addresses what the associations call the arbitrary “specialty” designation that pharmacy benefit managers use to steer patients into PBM-owned pharmacies. “H.B. 4112 will help patients...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Community Pharmacists Association said it has strong concerns about CMS’s proposed Medicare Part D rule, which outlines the latest efforts by the agency to lower out-of-pocket drug costs for patients and address pharmacy direct and indirect remuneration fees. In comments submitted on the rule, NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey said that without incorporating changes suggested by the association, the proposed rule “will fail to achieve its intended goals.”...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Health insurance plans and their pharmacy benefit managers shouldn’t tell patients which pharmacies to use, a practice known as “patient steering,” according to 84% percent of respondents to a new national consumer survey released by the National Community Pharmacists Association.  More specifically, 78% say insurance plans and PBMs shouldn’t require patients to use pharmacies they own and they shouldn’t be allowed to require patients...

WASHINGTON – The National Community Pharmacists Association criticized the Federal Trade Commission after it deadlocked on a vote to investigate pharmacy benefit managers.  “Two members of the FTC just let the worst actors in the market off the hook. After hearing hours of testimony by community pharmacists and patients, all of whom painted the same shocking picture about PBM abuse, and not a single witness there to defend the PBM industry, it is inexplicable that two members...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The National Community Pharmacists Association reiterated its call to the Federal Trade Commission to block UnitedHealth Group’s acquisition of Change Healthcare in a recent letter. UHG owns United Healthcare, a major health insurer, and Optum, a pharmacy benefit manager and mail order pharmacy. NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey has warned the merger would create a massively unfair advantage in the marketplace for a company that is already dominant and would threaten fair competition,...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. –  More than nine in 10 pharmacists are having a difficult time keeping up with the surging demand for at-home COVID-19 tests, according to a new survey by the National Community Pharmacists Association.  “COVID-19 has caused shortages throughout the economy, but this is acute,” said B. Douglas Hoey, NCPA CEO. “Community pharmacists are the first line of defense against the virus. Testing is a key to getting everyone back at work and back in school,...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – Community pharmacies are losing money dispensing new oral antiviral medicines based on the low fees paid by health insurance companies, writes the National Community Pharmacists Association in a letter to CMS Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure. “NCPA asks for immediate intervention before these pharmacies are forced to stop dispensing the oral antiviral drugs because they can’t justify the cost to their business,” wrote B. Douglas Hoey, CEO of NCPA. Pharmacies...