New Sources Needed To Fund Pharmacy Services, ASHP Tells CMS

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 13 Mar 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) should implement a new model that will appropriately reimburse hospitals for pharmacy services, ASHP told an agency advisory panel last week.

Edward Stemley, M.S.., Pharm.D., director of ASHP's section of pharmacy practice managers, joined a group of stakeholders to shed light on the impact that the current reimbursement structure has on pharmacy overhead costs for the Ambulatory Payment Classification (APC) Advisory Panel. ASHP member Ernest R. Anderson, Jr., M.S., director of pharmacy at the Lahey Clinic in Burlington, Mass. and president-elect of the Association of Community Cancer Centers, was also a part of stakeholder group.

Stemley noted that the reimbursement for separately paid drugs does not adequately cover the cost for outpatient pharmacy departments to manage medications jeopardizing their ability to care for beneficiaries.

The group asked the panel to recommend that CMS create a pool to fund payment for pharmacy services and develop a model for reimbursing hospitals.

The APC panel will issue its recommendations to CMS this spring. Track progress on this issue online at www.ashp.org/advocacy.

Click here to read Stemley's prepared comments to the APC panel.

American Society of Health-System Pharmacists