Congress Passes Legislation To Protect Medicaid Patients And Pharmacists

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Also Included In: Medicare / Medicaid / SCHIP
Article Date: 28 Sep 2007 - 8:00 PDT

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The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) applauds Congress for taking action over the past 24 hours to counteract a little-known requirement inserted in a recently passed Iraq spending bill that could do serious harm to both Medicaid beneficiaries and local pharmacists. Beginning October 1, 2007, Medicaid prescriptions were to be written on tamper-resistant prescription pads.

Congress took action to delay this date by 6 months to allow sufficient time to educate prescribers, pharmacists and patients about the new tamper-resistant prescription pad requirement and to get the prescription pads printed and distributed to prescribers.

"Congress, as it continues its work to address potential concerns in the Medicaid program, deserves significant recognition for its bi-partisan efforts to ensure that patient care does not suffer," praised John A. Gans, APhA Executive Vice President and CEO. "APhA urges President Bush to sign this delay into law immediately."

APhA agrees that legislators are right to crack down on Medicaid prescription drug fraud but faults their ambitious timetable. The provision allowed just three months for pharmacists to comply with the law, failing to consider that it took states like New York 18 months to implement similar programs. In an editorial last week, Dr. Gans called the provision "a prescription for disaster," and went on to explain that pharmacists would be in the unenviable position of having to turn away some of our most vulnerable citizens if they arrived at the pharmacy with their prescription on the wrong type of paper.

"The purpose of the tamper proof requirement is to combat fraud, not create chaos for patients and pharmacies," said Senator Sherrod Brown (D-OH) an original cosponsor of legislation to delay implementation and key leader on the issue. "I'm pleased this bipartisan bill passed the Senate. We'll keep working until it's signed into law."

"A six month delay is just good common sense," noted Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-OH), a leader of the House effort to secure a delay. "I want to do the right thing and allow doctors, pharmacists and patients the time needed to study the new law and properly prepare for it."

APhA, the largest professional association of pharmacists in the country, and its state affiliates thank Sens. Brown (D-OH) and George Voinovich (R-OH) along with Reps. Wilson (D-OH) a Robert Aderholt (R-AL), Tom Allen (D-ME), Marion Berry (D-AR) and Mike Ross (D-AR) for their leadership on this critical issue. APhA would also like to acknowledge the efforts of the congressional leadership including Rep. Frank Pallone (D-NJ) for their continued commitment to patient care.

The American Pharmacists Association, founded in 1852 as the American Pharmaceutical Association, represents more than 60,000 practicing pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists, student pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and others interested in advancing the profession. APhA, dedicated to helping all pharmacists improve medication use and advance patient care, is the first-established and largest association of pharmacists in the United States.

Background

The Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act which includes a provision mandating that all Medicaid prescriptions, beginning October 1, 2007, must be written on "tamper resistant" paper in order to be eligible for federal reimbursement. Currently, most physicians do not use these types of pads, nor are supplies readily available.

Last year, doctors wrote approximately 330 million prescriptions for Medicaid beneficiaries - 11percent of the nearly 3.1 billion total prescriptions written every year. To implement this requirement in just three short months calls for thousands of new prescriptions and refills to be written on these tamper-resistant prescription pads.

The tamper resistant prescription pad requirement was designed to prevent Medicaid fraud. However, the original timeline for implementation could have resulted in patients not being able to receive their medications if prescribing physicians failed to write prescriptions on a tamper resistant prescription pad.

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