Beginning January 9, the Health and Human Services Commission limited the daily morphine equivalent dose (MED) that people enrolled in Medicaid fee-for-service may receive to 300 MED, and will be applied to all opioid prescriptions for all clients, with exceptions for people diagnosed with cancer or those receiving palliative or hospice care.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
The Board of Pharmacy, University of California, San Francisco School of Pharmacy and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration are hosting an educational forum on Saturday, January 27 in San Francisco to train pharmacists on drug diversion trends, pharmacy burglaries, prescription drug abuse and overdose prevention. Pharmacists will receive six hours of continuing education credit for attending the day-long event, plus an additional hour can be earned at the end of the day to meet the requirements of the pharmacist protocol to provide naloxone. Space is limited, and preregistration is strongly encouraged. To register, email your full name and license number to registration@dca.ca.gov.
Also in California…The Board of Pharmacy has added an additional Public Board Meeting on Thursday, January 11 and published a Notice of Meeting Agenda.
Also in California…In a letter sent in December, NACDS, in partnership with the California Retailers Association and the California Pharmacists Association, continues to press the Department of Health Care Services to implement Assembly Bill 1114 (2016, Eggman) to pay pharmacists for providing certain healthcare services.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
In January 22, the Board of Pharmacy will be seeking stakeholder input on the following proposed draft rules to regulate the practice of pharmacy.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Mary Staples at 817-442-1155.
NACDS and the Connecticut Association of Community Pharmacy met with Rodrick Marriott, Director, Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection, Drug Control Division, to discuss the January 1, 2018 launch of mandatory e-prescribing for controlled substances Schedules II through V prescriptions. Subsequently, the Drug Control Division published an FAQ that included a statement noting that “a pharmacist is NOT required to verify that a prescriber has a waiver from the requirement to electronically prescribe, or properly falls under one of the other exceptions from the requirement to electronically prescribe. Pharmacists may continue to dispense medications from otherwise valid written, oral, or fax prescriptions that are consistent with current laws and regulations.”
For more information, please contact NACDS’ Ben Pearlman at 617-515-2603.
Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) signed into law SB 772, effective January 1, 2018, requiring prescribers to register with the Prescription Monitoring Program (PMP) and, with certain exceptions, to document their check of the PMP before prescribing Schedule II controlled substances.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Joel Kurzman at 847-905-0555.
Lt. Gov. Brian Calley (R) signed into law a package of legislation intended to address the opioid epidemic and several bills of which directly pertain to pharmacy. SB 166requires prescribers by Friday, June 1, 2018 to register with the Prescription Monitoring Program and, with certain exceptions, to obtain reports for controlled substance prescriptions of greater than a three-day supply. SB 274 allows pharmacists in certain circumstances to partially fill a controlled substances prescription and prohibits prescribers from prescribing more than a seven-day supply in a seven-day period when treating a patient for acute pain.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Joel Kurzman at 847-905-0555.
The e-Health Advisory Committee issued its final recommendations to Gov. Mark Dayton (DFL) to address the opioid epidemic. Of note is the recommended goal of increasing electronic prescribing of controlled substances from its current 20% to 80% by 2020 and to develop and implement policy options for enforcement if the goal is not met.
For more information, contact NACDS’ Joel Kurzman at 847-905-0555.
NACDS submitted comments to the Board of Pharmacy urging regulators to reconsider plans to require compliance with USP Ch. <800> by July 1, 2018, ahead of the USP’s December 1, 2019 effective date. At its December meeting, the Board heeded the concerns raised by NACDS and others in the pharmacy community about early implementation and opted to delay compliance until December 2019.
For more information, please contact NACDS’ Ben Pearlman at 617-515-2603.
CMS has approved the State Department of Health’s Medicaid State Plan Amendment for cost-based reimbursement plus a $10.00 professional dispensing fee retroactive to April 1, 2017 for the Medicaid fee-for-service program. The new professional dispensing fee is $10.00 per prescription or written order by a practitioner and does not apply to over-the-counter products that do not meet the definition of a covered outpatient drug per section 1927K of the Social Security Act. The following are changes to product reimbursement in the Medicaid fee-for-service program:
The state will initiate the reimbursement changes in two phases. In the near future, the State intends to give pharmacies two weeks’ notice that the new rate will be initiated on all Medicaid fee-for-service claims. After the successful roll out of the claims processing with the new rates, the State will begin a retroactive adjustment of past claims. The adjustment will be spread out over a period of time.
For more information, please contact NACDS’ Ben Pearlman at 617-515-2603.