Early Saturday morning, NCPA saw the culmination of the hard work of pharmacy advocates at the end of last week, with the removal of mandatory NADAC reporting from the budget reconciliation bill. Due to the Senate parliamentarian's decision last week to disallow the inclusion of the Medicaid managed care spread pricing provision (cost plus) in the bill but allowing mandatory NADAC reporting to remain, community pharmacy was in a dangerous situation. Without cost-plus, which ensures adequate compensation for independent pharmacies, the mandatory NADAC reporting by itself would have given PBMs another way to reduce reimbursements.
On Thursday, NCPA and other groups blanketed the Senate with a warning, and we urged them to remove mandatory NADAC reporting. We also put out an alert to members, urging them to contact their senators. As of Friday afternoon, approximately 2,200 NCPA members had done just that. Those efforts were a success: Mandatory NADAC was not included in the released text on Saturday morning. That protects pharmacies and paves the way for PBM reform to be passed in a separate legislative package later this year.
