Pharmacy chains begs for prolonged emergency provisions (interns can vaccinate, doubled reimbursements per shot, no liability)

From Fierce Pharma, which has embedded code which made posting this a nightmare.  Think it is finally obliterated.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) wants the White House to keep the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act
in place until October 2024. PREP provides liability protection to
pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and pharmacy interns, according to a letter sent last week by Steven C. Anderson, NACDS president and CEO.

 

NACDS
also wants to see a plan “grounded in reality” by which uninsured
individuals will be covered for vaccinations, tests and anti-COVID
therapeutics, pointing out that funding for testing and therapeutics for
the uninsured ended in late March and funding for vaccine
administration in early April.

What’s the plan for when coverage for vaccines and COVID-19 tests shifts from the government to commercial insurance payers, NACDS wants to know.

“As
we continue to roll out new bivalent COVID-19 booster shots to address
COVID-19 variants and simultaneously prepare for what is predicted to be
a particularly severe flu season, other challenges exist,” Anderson
wrote. “We must prepare methodically for the formal conclusion of the
federal public health emergency declaration and for a transition of
COVID-19 vaccinations, testing and therapeutics to the commercial
markets and coverage by Medicare, Medicaid, and private health
insurers.”

The shift should be accompanied by
a public awareness campaign so patients understand how best to get care
for COVID-19 and other problems.

NACDS also calls for the passage
of H.R. 7213, the Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services
Act, which the organization claims will establish a clear pathway for
paying for pharmacy services delivered at drugstores to Medicare
beneficiaries. “Lack of this pathway today is generating real-world
consequences—most notably, contributing to reduced access to lifesaving
therapeutics,” the letter states.

The letter also calls on a
better rollout of COVID-19 therapeutics by leveraging pharmacists.
Because that has not been done, NACDS says, it limited “the
accessibility and equity of these medications.”

NACDS states: “It
would be deeply harmful to our nation’s public health to hastily unravel
the flexibilities that enable pharmacies to provide key services
patients have come to expect and need.”

Ninety
percent of Americans live within five miles of a pharmacy; this is one
of the reasons pharmacists have administered over 266 million doses of
vaccine so far during the COVID-19 pandemic, NACDS notes in the letter.

“In
fact, approximately 2 of every 3 COVID-19 vaccine doses are being
provided at a pharmacy and more than 40% of individuals vaccinated for
COVID-19 at a pharmacy are from racial and ethnic minority groups,” the
letter says. “Further, more than 40% of children ages 5 to 11 who have
been vaccinated for COVID-19 did so at a pharmacy.”

The American
Academy of Family Physicians, which represents about 127,000 physicians
and medical students nationwide, isn’t quite on the same page as NACDS,
stating in a letter
(PDF) that it sent to Biden on Sept. 13 that the “burden should not
fall on primary care physicians to determine if their patients received
the COVID-19 vaccine from a community vaccine provider.

“Further,
primary care physicians should be notified if their patients are
prescribed or administered monoclonal antibody treatment for COVID-19,
so they can provide appropriate follow-up care. Increasing reliance on
pharmacists and other providers outside of patients’ medical homes
squanders the value of physician-patient relationships and leads to care
fragmentation.”