On Thursday, Jan. 8, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee held a hearing on 10 bills related to patient access to Medicare services. While the list of bills on the committee's docket did not include NCPA priority PBM reform legislation, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) used his time to highlight two bills to benefit pharmacy:
"The Ensuring Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act, which will allow seniors to access testing and treatment for common respiratory illnesses at the most convenient and accessible site of care for many Americans — and that's their local community pharmacy. The bill does this by establishing permanent reimbursement for pharmacists under Medicare and states where scope of practice laws already allow pharmacists to deliver such services ... in many states where such services are allowed under the state scope of practice, the only patients currently without coverage are seniors under Medicare, and the very patients most likely to have severe cases of common respiratory conditions are these patients.
"Secondly, I want to mention the Preserving Patient Access to Long-Term Care Pharmacies Act, which is a bipartisan piece of legislation that provides a critical fix so seniors can continue to access the safe, reliable long-term care pharmacy services they deserve."
NCPA is proud to support both the Ensuring Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (H.R. 3164) and the Preserving Patient Access to Long-term Care Pharmacies Act (H.R. 5031).
