ACHC Redesigns Website with New Features, Resources
The Accreditation Commission for Health Care (ACHC) has launched a redesigned website with added functionality for its members.
In a May 21 announcement, the organization said the new website has a “new look, new features,” with the ability to search and “download in a snap.” The site has been designed to be more convenient than ever to use, with resources, articles and updates available on providers’ program pages.
ACHC accredits and certifies more than 26,000 organizations in 27 different programs, including durable medical equipment, orthotics and prosthetics (DMEPOS), home care, home health, home infusion, hospice, telehealth, sleep, and palliative care.
NCPA Lauds PBM Reforms in Budget Bill that Passed House
The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) has praised pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reforms in the budget bill that recently passed in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The NCPA’s May 22 statement focused on bill language that would eliminate PBM spread pricing and require transparent, fair reimbursement rates for Medicaid managed care programs.
“While doing nothing to reduce the cost of drugs for Medicaid beneficiaries, spread pricing has been costing federal and state taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars every year,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, pharmacist, MBA, in the announcement. “Through low and underwater reimbursements, PBMs have been systematically squeezing local pharmacies and helping drive them out of business. It’s egregious. Moving to a fairer pharmacy reimbursement system that ends spread pricing and requires transparent, predictable reimbursements to pharmacies is a step in the right direction. We urge the Senate to swiftly pass these provisions and President Trump to sign them into law.”
The NCPA statement described spread pricing as “when PBMs charge insurance plans like Medicaid one price for prescription medications, reimburse pharmacies that dispense them a much lower price, and then keep a big chunk of the difference (the spread) for themselves.”
The association said it has been urging Congress and the president “to ban this practice and to pay pharmacies in a simple, predictable format that covers their costs to dispense prescription medications.”
