Dear Colleague,
The great Michael Buffer, ring announcer for the biggest professional prize fights of the past 30 years, is famous for five words: Llllllllet’s Get Ready to Rumblllllllle! Well, this summer, we’re gonna make him proud.
Yesterday we announced a national multi-media campaign aimed at pressuring Congress to (finally) pass PBM reform—including much needed prescription payment reforms. We’ll be going toe to toe with the PBM lobby, which spent more than $20 million already this year to block that reform by misleading voters, patients, and lawmakers.
The reforms on the line have strong bi-partisan support in both houses of Congress. In addition to requiring PBMs to be more transparent in their dealings, they would require every state to pay NADAC plus (a fair reimbursement for your cost of dispensing) in Medicaid managed care programs and require CMS to define and enforce “reasonable and relevant” contract terms in state Medicare Part D programs—with oversight of what constitutes reasonable and relevant.
The Medicaid managed care measures were passed this year by the House overwhelmingly, and all measures by the Senate Finance Committee. We’re close. We’ve won every round. Now it’s time to finish the fight.
That’s the name of our campaign. You can read more about it here: https://ncpa.org/finishthefight. It’s the biggest advocacy campaign we’ve undertaken in decades. That’s because community pharmacy and your patients are this close to victory, and the stakes have never been so high.
The campaign features national cable television commercials and national digital advertisements that will appear on social media and all over the internet. It will also feature thousands of letters to Congress urging them to pass the reforms, and don’t be surprised to see letters to the editor and guest editorials from patients and pharmacists whom we’re recruiting for the effort. In fact, most of our campaign will be aimed at getting patients to enlist in the fight. We’ll be driving them to the campaign website and urging them to let their federal representatives know that PBM reform is needed now. We’ll be educating them on how PBMs drive up their drug costs, decide which drugs they can take, and force their most trusted healthcare providers (that’s you) out of business. Many of you have already let Congress know your concerns. In fact, NCPA members sent more than 20,000 letters to Congress already this year. Now it’s time to get your patients laced up and ready to rumble.
While we’re fighting, you can get in a few licks too. The campaign website has a “resources” tab where you’ll find all our digital, video, and printable assets. You can download them and use them on your own social media platforms, in your own advertising programs, and in your own stores.
The centerpiece of the campaign is our first TV and digital video (there will be more). It’s entitled PBMs are Leeches. Watch it here. It’s shocking. It’s gross. It’s perfect. The title says it all. And it’s meant to get your colleagues, your patients, and your representatives buzzing. In the meantime, I hope you’re pumped up and ready to activate your patients! We are. Thank you all for your support and activism. You’ve already fought so hard. But the fight isn’t over, and we’re not going to leave anything in the locker room. We hope you’ll join us.
Best,
B. Douglas Hoey, Pharmacist, MBA
NCPA CEO
