House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) announced on Friday that he is investigating whether PBMs targeted independent pharmacies with punitive audits in retaliation for publicly supporting H.R. 6610, the Pharmacists Fight Back in FEHB Plans Act.
Comer sent letters to CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx raising concerns of an unusual increase in independent pharmacy audits after supporting the legislation, including one for a $0.99 medication that took hours of staff time to handle. He is requesting documents, communications, and staff-level briefings about the PBMs’ audit practices, pharmacy selection processes, and nationwide audit totals, as well as detailed records concerning audits of independent pharmacies in Kentucky, Mississippi, and Florida.
You can read his comments as well as the letters here.
H.R. 6610, endorsed by NCPA as a policy priority, is bipartisan legislation that would help rein in predatory PBM tactics in Federal Employee Health Benefit Programs. You can read more about the legislation here.
