Icky
12-21-2006, 05:56 PM
Industry Fuming over Medicaid Cuts, With Good Reason
Pharmacy leaders are fuming over $8.4 billion worth of proposed cuts in Medicaid reimbursements that could gut pharmacy margins in some drug stores and cripple efforts to shift lower-income patients to cost-saving generic drugs. On Monday, the Bush Administration unveiled its long-awaited proposal to slash payments for Medicaid, in line with the Deficit Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed into law early this year. Key to the president’s cost-cutting plan is a shift in the way Medicaid pays for drugs, using the “average manufacturer’s price” that pharmacy benefit plans pay for multi-source drugs in the open market as a new basis for calculating what states pay pharmacies for dispensing prescriptions to Medicaid patients. In effect, the Bush plan would limit the funding states would have to pay pharmacies under the Medicaid program. According to Bruce Roberts, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Community Pharmacists Association, the plan also exempts higher-cost, brand-name drugs from the budget-cutting ax, “thereby eliminating any incentive to encourage lower-cost generics. “Under this plan, pharmacists would be losing an average of $3 to $4 for every generic prescription dispensed,” Roberts said. “We are very disappointed that the President would force such an anti-small-business measure on pharmacists. More than half of all prescriptions dispensed by retail pharmacies are for generic medications, so losing money on every one dispensed to a Medicaid patient is a recipe for economic disaster.”
CALL YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN!!!! Tell them that you support your independant pharmacy!!! Tell them they must NOT GO THROUGH WITH THESE PLANS!!!
IF they go through with this, it's one step closer to forcing you to use MAIL-ORDER or MEGA-PHARMACIES (Like Wal-Mart!!!!)...
Your records will become more centralized...
You will lose more choice!! and receive worse CARE!
Please call! Tell everybody you know to call!!! This plan is NOT in your best interest... nor mine... It only helps BIG BUSINESS and Big Business ONLY!
Pharmacy leaders are fuming over $8.4 billion worth of proposed cuts in Medicaid reimbursements that could gut pharmacy margins in some drug stores and cripple efforts to shift lower-income patients to cost-saving generic drugs. On Monday, the Bush Administration unveiled its long-awaited proposal to slash payments for Medicaid, in line with the Deficit Reduction Act passed by Congress and signed into law early this year. Key to the president’s cost-cutting plan is a shift in the way Medicaid pays for drugs, using the “average manufacturer’s price” that pharmacy benefit plans pay for multi-source drugs in the open market as a new basis for calculating what states pay pharmacies for dispensing prescriptions to Medicaid patients. In effect, the Bush plan would limit the funding states would have to pay pharmacies under the Medicaid program. According to Bruce Roberts, executive vice president and chief executive officer of the National Community Pharmacists Association, the plan also exempts higher-cost, brand-name drugs from the budget-cutting ax, “thereby eliminating any incentive to encourage lower-cost generics. “Under this plan, pharmacists would be losing an average of $3 to $4 for every generic prescription dispensed,” Roberts said. “We are very disappointed that the President would force such an anti-small-business measure on pharmacists. More than half of all prescriptions dispensed by retail pharmacies are for generic medications, so losing money on every one dispensed to a Medicaid patient is a recipe for economic disaster.”
CALL YOUR SENATORS AND CONGRESSMEN!!!! Tell them that you support your independant pharmacy!!! Tell them they must NOT GO THROUGH WITH THESE PLANS!!!
IF they go through with this, it's one step closer to forcing you to use MAIL-ORDER or MEGA-PHARMACIES (Like Wal-Mart!!!!)...
Your records will become more centralized...
You will lose more choice!! and receive worse CARE!
Please call! Tell everybody you know to call!!! This plan is NOT in your best interest... nor mine... It only helps BIG BUSINESS and Big Business ONLY!