Scope of Practice and Compensation for Services

Community pharmacists are both medication experts and America's most accessible health care providers. The services they can provide to their patients and communities extend far beyond dispensing, but current laws and regulations can create barriers to those services. NCPA is committed to working with our members and state partners to remove the barriers preventing pharmacists from practicing to the full scope of their training and expertise.

Scope of Practice Legislation

While certainly not a comprehensive list, the following are areas where NCPA is active related to expansion of pharmacists’' scope of practice and insurance coverage or compensation for pharmacists' patient care services.

PREP Act amendments for pharmacists’ vaccine and testing authority extended through 2029

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) extended the PREP Act protections for pharmacists' vaccine and testing authority through December 31, 2029. The decision allows pharmacists, pharmacy interns, and pharmacy technicians to continue independently administering vaccines and test to treat services for COVID-19. The authority was set to expire at the end of 2024. NCPA was instrumental in advocating this change with HHS. Since 2020, licensed pharmacists in all 50 states have been able to use this federal authority to expand vaccination and testing services to more patients where it hadn’t previously been permitted within the state’s pharmacy scope of practice. Details on the extension will be published on the Federal Register here.