PCMA: New Analysis Shows Florida Can Reduce Medicaid Pharmacy Waste by $2.1 Billion
Washington, DC (PRWEB) November 14, 2013 -- While Florida has made strides toward reducing costs in its Medicaid program, the state could save an additional $2.1 billion by modernizing its Medicaid pharmacy program to encourage greater use of preferred pharmacies and other innovative pharmacy benefit management (PBM) tools, a new analysis by the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) highlights.
Click here to read the new analysis.
“The state of Florida is taking steps to reduce wasteful spending in Medicaid while maintaining high access to care,” said Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) President and CEO Mark Merritt. “Florida can eliminate $ 2.1 billion in wasteful spending by operating Medicaid pharmacy more like Fortune 500 companies and Medicare.”
The new NCPA analysis on Florida’s Medicaid program finds:
• 11 percent of the overall savings would come from paying market-based, competitive dispensing fees.
• Nearly one-fourth (24 percent) of the savings total would come from greater use of generic medications.
• More than half (59 percent) of the savings would come from greater use of lower cost preferred pharmacy networks.
The analysis notes that Florida should avoid policies that force plans to keep the most expensive drugstores in their networks. According to NCPA, so-called “Any Willing Pharmacy” laws reduce the bargaining power of health plans to negotiate lower prices and “unnecessarily facilitates waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Learn more about Medicaid pharmacy at MedicaidPharmacySavings.com.
Charles Cote, The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, http://www.pcmanet.org, 202-207-3605, [email protected]
Share this article