Community Pharmacists in California have united to form Californians for Access to Life-Saving Medicine: a coalition of the Community Pharmacy Advocacy Group (CPAG). The purpose of the coalition is to help save your community pharmacy and preserve a patient’s right to come to your practice.
Patient access to independent community pharmacies is at grave risk. Multiple factors by outside entities such as Medi-Cal program cuts and Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) continue to erode the viability for independent pharmacies to survive.
Action Plan
The coalition’s first priority was to address the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) retroactive recoupment of payments that began on May 31, 2019. We successfully won a legal injunction against the DHCS to stop the Medi-Cal Fee-for-Service clawbacks. Now the association has co-sponsored Assembly Bill 2100 authored by Assemblymember Dr. Jim Wood. More than 20 health advocacy groups and a bipartisan group of lawmakers support the bill. The coalition’s many successes include:
Stopped all clawbacks with a successful legal injunction
Saved pharmacies $240 million in retroactive recoupments
Generated support from 11 key legislative decision makers
Co-sponsored Assembly Bill 2100 to permanently suspend clawbacks and address reimbursement methodology
Recruited 750 pharmacy owners, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to join the cause
Secured over 47 minutes of radio and TV airtime
Placed 13 media pieces in regional and local publications
Partnered with 19 academic, community and patient advocacy organizations
Now we are mounting an aggressive legislative and public affairs campaign to shine more light on PBM practices and eliminate harmful policies, such as DIR fees, from being implemented in California. Part of the public relations efforts to outline the negative impacts that PBMs have on the viability of community pharmacies.
In order to successfully build out this aggressive plan, we need resources to fight back.
We are asking pharmacy owners and friends of pharmacy to make a contribution to Californians for Access to Life-Saving Medicine, a coalition of the Community Pharmacy Advocacy Group. These contributions are reserved for these independent owner issues only, and are necessary to hire the best and brightest attorneys and public relations firm. Can we count on your support and contribution for the coalition’s fund? To contribute, click here.
There is an option to make smaller monthly contributions to the fund. We appreciate any and all support to save community, independent pharmacy.
