Medicare drug benefit leads NACDS agenda

Drug Store News, June 9, 2003 by James Frederick

"Seventy years ago, as anti-chain measures swept the nation, we were fighting legislation that threatened our very existence. Today, we're fighting legislation, at least in the case of Medicare prescription drug coverage, that gives some our best customers every incentive to go elsewhere for their prescription drugs," Griffin told the audience. "The issues have changed, the challenges have changed, but fortunately, our greatest strength--working together as a unified voice for this industry--has not."

Also weighing in to the Medicare reform challenge at the annual meeting kickoff was veteran journalist and author Bob Woodward, who gained fame uncovering the Nixon-era Watergate scandal and who is now assistant managing editor of The Washington Post. Citing the need to adjust the Medicare program "to the realities of the 21st century," Woodward called for an independent commission to study various forms of Medicare prescription drug coverage, "where the mix."

'Pharmacy is always the easiest target'

The contentious issue of prescription drug coverage for seniors took center stage at Annual, but it was just one of a laundry list of issues that drug retailers said they must grapple with this year.

Those issues include individual challenges that all pharmacy retailers say they confront daily, like the blurring of trade channels, the sluggish economy, the loss of prescription margins and the costs of technology, distribution and marketing. But those everyday hurdles were far from the only topic of conversation. The retailers, suppliers, pharmacy educators and NACDS leaders at the annual meeting also had plenty to say about Medicare and Medicaid reform, health care budget cuts, illegal drug importation, pharmacy labor shortages and retailer/supplier relations, among other issues.

Among those industry hurdles, said Griffin, was the ongoing shortage of pharmacists "that by one count has created 7,000 vacancies at pharmacies from coast to coast. Through the combined efforts of our members, NACDS is working to address the problem by supporting pharmacy education, building alliances with the colleges of pharmacy and promoting the rewards of pharmacy as a career."

Another deeply ingrained industry problem Griffin cited is the myriad of administrative duties that pharmacists must perform in addition to patient counseling and dispensing prescriptions. "Today, pharmacists spend much of their time checking formularies, filling out insurance forms and waiting on hold for some untrained, unlicensed functionary from an HMO. And again, NACDSis seeking solutions with efforts to promote technology and automation that will free pharmacists from the paperwork from the bureaucratic burdens and allow them to spend more time where it is most valuable--face to face with patients."

In numerous interviews at The Breakers, industry leaders expressed a clear-eyed awareness of the threats posed to their businesses by PBMs, mail order pharmacy, draconian health care budget cuts and storefront drug importers--threats that represent systemic upheavals that could shake the foundations of health care and community pharmacy. They also voiced a determination to overcome those threats through intensive lobbying at the federal and state levels, and through ongoing efforts to educate lawmakers and their own patients about pharmacy's role in health care delivery.