Patient access to generic pain and other prescription drugs and community pharmacies are both increasingly at risk due to inadequate reimbursement rates that fail to cover the cost of filling prescriptions, according to a recent National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) survey.
Morphine was among the medications that did not have adequate reimbursement, the survey said.
“For decades, community pharmacists have promoted the appropriate use of generic drugs to lower costs. However, more recently the price for some of these medications has skyrocketed 1,000% or more virtually overnight while reimbursement rates paid to community pharmacists have inexcusably lagged behind for weeks or months,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, RPh, MBA.
The new survey asked 700 pharmacists to describe their experiences in this area since an earlier 2014 survey first documented the problem. Virtually every pharmacist experienced a “large upswing” in the acquisition cost of a generic drug over the past six months, with approximately 80% stating that this occurred in at least 26 instances during this period, and 93% said the problem has grown worse since an NCPA survey done in 2013. (read full article)