LETTER: Local pharmacies need help
Local pharmacies need help
You may have heard a lot about the pharmacy closures that have hit our area hard. Spotlight PA did a great article a few weeks ago highlighting many of the challenges.
We have had a tremendous influx of new patients. Unfortunately, we could not help many due to the fact we cannot accept many of these contracts. Others have gotten phone calls that unfortunately we cannot source the medications at a price that covers our cost. One patient on four brand name medications was $260 below the cost of the drugs!
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) affect everyone. We can talk about pharmaceutical companies being the problem with high drug prices, but net brand name prices are relatively stable. Rebates from the drug company to the PBM/insurance company/employer start at 60% of the price. These rebates are the real driver of prescription dollars.
(So on that $1,000 box of Ozempic, at least $600 passes back to a PBM or your insurance company. And we wonder why GLP-1’s are going to bankrupt the health care system.)
If you get insurance through your job, more than likely your company is collecting the rebate dollars off of your brand-name medications (hopefully you don’t have high deductible coverage). Ask your human resources department about why you have to use mail order or only certain pharmacies.
If you are a taxpayer, these rebate dollars drive up the cost of Medicaid.
If you are a senior citizen, these dollars should be reducing your out-of-pocket costs, not going to a PBM or insurance company.
If something doesn’t change, your main street independent pharmacy will go the way of your town’s hospital and doctors’ offices, swallowed up by bigger corporate entities.
If you think bigger is better, no worries. Your mailbox, the big-box store, or the three-letter pharmacy (that also owns a PBM, health insurance company, and mail order pharmacy) will fill your prescriptions, hopefully in a timely manner.
But if you care about or need access to pharmacy services, please call your state senator or representative about Medicaid and commercial pharmacy access. If Medicare is your concern, call your congressman or senator about reforming the Medicare Advantage/Medicare Part D program to ensure you have access to pharmacies like ours.
We have been taking care of people for over 100 years. We hope to continue that tradition, but it gets tougher by the day. Your elected officials need to hear from you.
Erich Cushey
Owner/operator of Curtis Pharmacy in Washington, Greene and Fayette counties