The Department of Commerce has published the 2021 PBM Transparency Report. The Minnesota Pharmacy Benefit Manager Licensure and Regulation Act requires Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to submit transparency reports to the Department of Commerce. The report summarizes the responses from all PBMs who submitted transparency reports to the Department, pursuant to Minn. Stat. § 62W.06, Sub’d. 2.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Jill McCormack at 717-592-8977.
Pharmacies need to establish policy and procedures, quality assurance programs, and validate the technology prior to the initial use for two new product verification rules that go into effect on August 30, 2022.
Additional summaries of newly revised and recently promulgated pharmacy rules are available in the Board’s latest newsletter.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
In response to a request from chain pharmacy, September 7 & 8 Board of Pharmacy meeting, the Board will discuss and potentially act on the Adoption of an Emergency Regulation in increase the number of pharmaceutical technicians and pharmaceutical technicians in training that a pharmacist may supervise at one time from four to six. The Retail Association of Nevada (RAN) and NACDS encourage members to send a letter of support in advance of the meeting.
Also in Nevada, pharmacists can now bill the state’s Medicaid program for hormonal contraceptive and HIV prevention services. The Board posted two guidance documents on the new laws that allow pharmacists to dispense self-hormonal contraceptives without a prescription, and allow pharmacists to prescribe and dispense PEP and PrEP drugs.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
The Legislative Health and Human Services Committee in early August to discuss state strategies for prescription drug access, access to pharmacy care, controlling the excessive cost of drugs, and pharmacy supply chain stakeholders (wholesalers, pharmacy benefit managers, manufacturers, and Insurers).
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
The North Carolina COVID-19 state of emergency sunsets on August 15, 2022. For more information on how it affects pharmacy practice please click here.
Also in North Carolina, pharmacy claims processing under Behavioral Health and Intellectual/Developmental Disabilities (I/DDs) Tailored Plans. Pharmacy Point of Sale (POS) claims for members enrolled in Tailored Plans will be temporarily managed by NCTracks when the plans launch on Dec. 1, 2022, through March 31, 2023. Beginning on April 1, 2023, these claims will be managed by the Tailored Plans. This change was made due to a key Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) unexpectedly leaving the NC Medicaid market in late 2021, which required some Tailored Plans to procure another PBM.
There will be no impact to members’ pharmacy benefits during this transition period. From Dec. 1, 2022, through March 31, 2023, member ID cards will not include pharmacy information. A new card will be issued for April 1, 2023, indicating the new RxBin and PCN numbers for the Tailored Plans.
NC Medicaid will reach out to members, pharmacists, and providers in the coming months with additional information about this transition. For more information, please see the Medicaid bulletin Pharmacy Point of Sale Process at Tailored Plan Launch.
Finally, please see August 2022 NC Medicaid Pharmacy Newsletter which contains information on the below.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Leigh Knotts at 803-243-7207.
Below are added items posted on the Board of Pharmacy’s website:
For more information, contact NACDS’ Jill McCormack at 717-592-8977.
The Oregon Health Authority’s Immunization Policy Advisory Team (IPACT) will meet September 1 via Zoom. To register in advance for this meeting, use this link.
Also in Oregon, the Oregon Health Authority released its 2021 Coordinated Care Organization (COO) Metrics Report. Although statewide performance showed improvement on most of the 14 incentive measures, the exceptions were two immunization measures related to youth immunizations which were down 7.7% for adolescents and 8.3% for immunizations received by the child’s second birthday. These continue to be affected by the disruptions in preventive care that occurred during the pandemic.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Sandra Guckian at 703-774-4801.
The Board of Pharmacy adopted the pharmacy counseling waiver and non-sterile compound rules at the August 2nd meeting. A summary of all the rules adopted is available here.
Also in Texas, the Board of Pharmacy created an infographic clarifying for pharmacists the requirement to check a patient’s controlled substance history in the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) before dispensing opioids, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, or carisoprodol. The Board inspectors have found that some integrated pharmacy management systems require that the pharmacist manually initiate a report request by clicking to “View/Show Report” and access the full controlled substance history report for the patient to comply with the mandated PMP lookup requirement. However, if your integrated pharmacy management system loads both the patient score and the full patient report, the pharmacist does not need to load the report separately to be compliant with the mandate.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
Medi-Cal posted the following:
Also in California, the Department of Health Care Services posted the following alerts on the Medi-Cal Rx Web Portal.
Finally in California, the Board of Pharmacy communicated the following:
For more information, contact NACDS’ Sandra Guckian at 703-774-4801.
