Given the high cost of medications, pharmacies should be sharing low-cost options with patients and allowing them to transfer their prescriptions as needed – without imposing additional administrative hassles on physician practices.
That was the gist of a letter the Texas Medical Association recently submitted in response to proposed standards governing retail pharmacies. TMA has long supported such measures, recognizing that “prescription drug costs can seriously impact a patient’s financial and medical well-being, and a growing public health concern is the cost of prescriptions,” TMA President Gary Floyd, MD, wrote to U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra in a Jan. 9 letter.
Those high costs, for instance, can negatively impact medication adherence , as patients may skip doses or even fail to fill their prescription to save money.
“To help address these costs, it is important for pharmacies to be able to disclose to the patient the lowest cost option for the prescribed medication at that pharmacy,” Dr. Floyd wrote.
TMA also urged HHS to work with Congress to allow Medicare patients to use pharmaceutical cards and discounts, adding that such measures help improve medication adherence and ultimately patient outcomes.
However, TMA took issue with some technological revisions in the proposed rule that could lead to incomplete patient information and limited communication options, in turn creating the potential for confusion and patient safety hazards, Dr. Floyd warned.
Practices also face the additional cost of adopting such technological revisions, “which should not be passed on to physicians,” the letter reads.
While this proposed rule primarily affects pharmacies, as it’s finalized, TMA will continue to monitor any implications for physicians.