The Homa Files

Punchline: First, the Mayo Clinic in Arizona stopped accepting Medicare patients.  Now, Walgreens drugstores across the state of Washington won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.

Isolated instances or the start of a trend ? I’ll bet trend …

* * * * *

Excerpted from Seattle Times: Walgreens – no new Medicaid patients, March 17, 2010

Effective April 16, Walgreens drugstores across the state won’t take any new Medicaid patients, saying that filling their prescriptions is a money-losing proposition — the latest development in an ongoing dispute over Medicaid reimbursement.

In a news release, Walgreens said its decision to not take new Medicaid patients stemmed from a “continued reduction in reimbursement” under the state’s Medicaid program, which reimburses it at less than the break-even point for 95 percent of brand-name medications dispensed to Medicaid patents.

Walgreens follows Bartell Drugs, which stopped taking new Medicaid patients last month and Ritzville Drug Company in Adams County announced in November that it would stop participating in Medicaid.

Doug Porter, the state’s director of Medicaid, said Medicaid recipients should be able to readily find another pharmacy because “we have many more pharmacy providers in our network than we need” for the state’s 1 million Medicaid clients.

Fred Meyer and Safeway said their pharmacies would continue to serve existing Medicaid patients and to take new ones, though both expressed concern that the reimbursement rate is too low for pharmacies to make a profit.

Washington was reimbursing pharmacies 86 percent of a drug’s average wholesale price until July, when it began paying them just 84 percent.

“Washington state Medicaid is now reimbursing pharmacies less than their cost of participation,” said Jeff Rochon, CEO of the Washington State Pharmacy Association.

Pharmacies that continue to fill Medicaid prescriptions at the current state reimbursement rate are “at risk of putting themselves out of business altogether,” he said.

Full article:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011367936_walgreens18m.html

This entry was posted on March 18, 2010 at 7:59 am and is filed under Health Care / Medical Insurance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.