Meds-for-meth bill drew record lobbying expenses, not even including radio and newspaper ad campaigns

Makers of over-the-counter drugs spent more than any lobbying interest ever had during a single Kentucky legislative session in their effort to defeat a bill requiring prescriptions for the key ingredient in methamphetamine, Bill Estep reports for the Lexington Herald-Leader.

"The Consumer Healthcare Products Association spent $457,053 on lobbying activities in the first three months of this year's legislative session, according to reports filed with the state Legislative Ethics Commission," Estep writes. "The group's lobbying effort was so dominant that it spent more than the next five groups combined in that period, January through March, according to spending reports."

And the figure doesn't even included hundreds of thousands of dollars that the trade group spent on radio and newspaper campaigns, because the lobby-reporting requirements do not apply to messages aimed only at the general public. The group did report spending on "a phone-bank operation to put people in contact with legislators to voice concerns about legislation to require a prescription for medicine containing pseudoephedrine, which is now available over the counter," Estep writes.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/04/30/2170495/makers-of-cold-medicines-set-new.html#storylink=cpy

The efforts, dating back to 2010, were partly successful. The legislature passed a bill "that will require a doctor's prescription for pseudoephedrine, but only after someone has bought 24 grams of the medicine a year," Estep notes. "A 48-count box of the generic medicine with 30-milligram pills contains 1.44 grams of pseudoephedrine. The bill excludes limits on gel caps and liquid pseudoephedrine." (Read more)

The lobbying effort wasn't only about Kentucky. The makers of Sudafed and other pseudoephedrine preparations are trying to stave off similar efforts in other states, and viewed Kentucky as a sort of firewall after seeing prescription-only laws pass in Oregon and Mississippi.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/04/30/2170495/makers-of-cold-medicines-set-new.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/04/30/2170495/makers-of-cold-medicines-set-new.html#storylink=cpy

Campbellsville pharmacists have mixed views about meds-for-meth bill; a good example of localizing a statewide issue

Pharmacists have mixed opinions about a bill that would require a prescription to purchase pseudoephedrine after a monthly or yearly limit has been reached, reports Calen McKinney for the Central Kentucky News Journal in Campbellsville. (Photo by McKinney)

The drug is the key ingredient used to make methamphetamine. Last week the Senate approved a bill that would limit non-prescription individuals' purchases to 7.2 grams per month and 24 grams per year.

Tresa Phillips at Nation's Medicines in Campbellsville told McKinney she feels the system in place now — an instant computer tracking system called MethCheck — is working. "I'm not sure that a new law is going to make a big difference," she said, adding that a person who is buying the drug already has to show state-issued identification.

However, Jay Eastridge at Eastridge-Phelps Pharmacy applauded the move. "It sort of restricts pseudoephedrine getting into the wrong hands," he said. "I wholeheartedly support the bill." Eastridge said pharmacists have become "gatekeepers" in the face of the meth epidemic and "it's just painful to watch" people coming in "from one drug store to the next seeing what they can get."

Ed Baise of the Medicine Centre agreed that pharmacists have "become the police" when it comes to limiting pseudoephedrine. But he said the drug should be put in a class of its own and pharmacists should be responsible for controlling purchases. Baise pointed out allergy sufferers could be inconvenienced by the bill. "This may help some," he said, "but it's not gonna solve the problem." (Read more)

Legislators hear from new managed-care firms; lawmaker rates their performance with a show of hands from pharmacists

Kentucky Health News

The three companies recently hired to manage Kentucky's Medicaid program outside the Louisville region defended themselves yesterday against complaints that they are squeezing independent pharmacies to the breaking point. One of the three firms, Kentucky Spirit, fared better in a hearing held by a House-Senate committee before a crowd that included many pharmacists.

When Sen. Vernie McGaha, R-Russell Springs, "asked for a show of hands from pharmacists in the audience to learn which of the three pharmacy-benefits companies they think underpay on generic drugs, nearly everyone raised their hands for Medco Health Solutions, which is Coventry [Cares]'s partner, and Catalyst Rx, which is WellCare [of Kentucky]'s. No one seemed to object to US Script, which is Kentucky Spirit's partner," reports John Cheves of the Lexington Herald-Leader.

Kentucky Spirit is the only firm that continues to pay pharmacists a dispensing fee of $4.50 to $5 per prescription, the rate that had been paid by the state. WellCare pays $3, and CoventryCares $1 to $1.50, the pharmacists told Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal. "Pharmacists have told lawmakers at previous hearings that pharmacy-benefits companies sometimes pay less for generic drugs than it costs pharmacies to acquire them," Cheves notes.

Read more here: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/02/13/2067444/medicaid-managed-care-companies.html#storylink=cpy

Rep. John Will Stacy, D-West Liberty, left, whose business interests include co-ownership of at least two pharmacies, got into it with G. William Strein, Medco's vice president for provider relations. "Stacy cut off Strein several times while he was attempting to answer," Cheves reports.

“Why is it fair that you can reimburse us below costs?” Stacy asked Strein, who "disputed Stacy’s assertion and said managed care attempts to strike a balance between its estimated cost of the drug and the costs of the pharmacy to buy and dispense it," Yetter reports. "But that claim was disputed by some of the roughly 30 pharmacists at the hearing who operate independent drugstores. Though the hearing ended before they got a chance to testify, several said afterward that they intended to keep making their case before lawmakers."

Jason Wallace, owner of Grant County Drugs, told Yetter, “It’s a real burden for Kentucky pharmacists. That’s why I’m here.” All the companies told members of the Joint Program Review and Investigations Subcommittee that they are committed to resolving the problems.

"Much of Monday’s testimony was devoted to the complex pricing formula known as the maximum allowable cost, or MAC, that managed care companies consider proprietary," Yetter writes. "Under the Medicaid plan before managed care, the formula was provided to pharmacists, who said they knew what they would be paid. Now, they said, they don’t find out what a company will pay for a specific drug until they file claims. And too often, they say, it’s less than they paid to buy the drug.

“How would you like to go to a gas station and fill your car up with gas and then be told what the charge is?” Breckinridge County pharmacist Jonathan Van Lahr asked after the hearing. (Read more)

Kentucky Health News is a service of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, based in the School of Journalism and Telecommunications at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

Independent pharmacists say managed care costs them money

Because two of the three new Medicaid managed-care companies have slashed the dispensing fee they will pay them, independent pharmacists are in danger of going out of business all over the state, pharmacists told the interim joint Health and Welfare Committee yesterday.

But one managed-care firm said that's the cost of saving money for the taxpayers, the reason the state implemented managed care statewide. "We recognize ... there's a big change here for everyone," said Barb Witte, CEO of CoventryCares. "All health care providers are going to have to tighten their belts."

Under the traditional Medicaid system, "pharmacists were paid a 'dispensing fee' per prescription of $4.50 to $5 plus reimbursement for their actual cost of the drug based on an industry formula called the 'maximum allowable cost,'" reports Deborah Yetter of The Courier-Journal.

But the dispensing fee of CoventryCares is only $1 to $1.50. WellCare increased its fee to $3 from $1.50, but cut reimbursement for cost, making the increase only worth about 80 cents. Kentucky Spirit is still paying $4.50 to $5.

Because the maximum allowable cost fluctuates on a monthly basis, pharmacists don't know their return until they file a claim. Often, "pharmacists find they are being paid less than it cost them to buy the drug from a wholesaler," Yetter reports.

"How long will I be able to stay in business losing money?" asked Mayfield pharmacist Sam Willett. "Not very long."

Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, told the MCOs and pharmacists to come to an agreement. "There must be a way to work this out," he said. (Read more)