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December 2005
The AC Phoenix
PRESCRIPTION FOR DISASTER
Medicaid Patients in Danger of Losing Access to Pharmacy Care.
Attention:
Rep.Virginia Fox
Sen. Richard Burr
Sen. Elizabeth Dole
The Do’s and Don’ts for
Achieving Medicaid Savings:
• DO encourage Medicaid saving by actively engaging
pharmacists to provide low-cost generic drugs. Currently,
only 52% of Medicaid dispensing is generic, yet states that
employ best practices have reached 60 percent. For every
one percent moved from brand to generic Medicaid will
realize $475 million in savings.
• DO create a reimbursement benchmark that reflects
pharmacies’ costs of purchasing or dispensing medicines —
use a real market price. Community pharmacies will not
be able to continue to serve Medicaid patients if they are
forced to dispense prescriptions at a loss.
• DO create new incentives for community pharmacies to
dispense generics.The average generic prescription is $21,
while the average brand prescription is $115. Congress
must ensure any proposal does not undermine generic
utilization or instead of achieving the desired savings,
Medicaid costs will continue to increase.
• DON’T use the proposed Average Manufacturers Price
(AMP) as benchmark for Medicaid prescription drug
reimbursement.The AMP calculation is based on out-of-
date pricing data. It represents manufacturers’ costs, not
actual purchasing costs for community pharmacies.
• DON’T adopt this AMP benchmark because it is not
a true market price. It is not reflective of the price
independent pharmacies pay for medicines. It includes
prices charged to mail order vendors as well as discounts
and rebates provided to other purchasers that are not
available to community pharmacies.
• DON'T risk putting community pharmacies out of the
Medicaid business and reducing access to the vital front
line relationship between patients and pharmacists,
especially in small towns and inner city neighborhoods.
Medicaid patients will lose access to the medicines
they need if their community pharmacist is forced
out of Medicaid,
There is a Better Way to
Achieve Medicaid System Savings.
The deep cuts under consideration for Medicaid reimburse
ment would be balanced on the backs of community
pharmacists in every State.This misguided plan would have
the effect of forcing many small town and city pharmacies
out of Medicaid dispensing, rather than losing money on
every prescription. Medicaid prescriptions are for the sickest
and poorest and the disabled — our country’s most
vulnerable population.They do not deserve to lose access
to the community pharmacists they know and trust because
Congress adopts a flawed plan. Please work with community
pharmacy to achieve more generic utilization and ultimately
more Medicaid savings.
This Important Announcement Has Been
Sponsored By The Following Independent
Community Pharmacies:
Marley Drug,Winston-Salem 336-771-7672
Jonestown Pharmacy,Winston-Salem 336-774-1445
Andrews Pharmacy, Winston-Salem 366-723-1 679
Medicap Pharmacy,Winston-Salem 336-922-1990
Lewisville Drug Company, Lewisville 336-946-0220
Gateway Pharmacy, Kernersville 336-992-21 I I
Yadkin Valley Pharmacy, Yadkinville 336-677-5000