National
Making Preferred Cost Sharing Pharmacies More Available
By
Feb 11, 2016 - 4:58:49 PM
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - The benefits Medicare provides are only as good as the access beneficiaries have to them. That's why beneficiary access is a founding principle of our work at CMS.
Last year, we heard concerns that some beneficiaries did not have ready geographic access to preferred cost-sharing pharmacies. Increasingly, Part D plans are creating smaller networks of pharmacies within their larger networks and offering lower cost-sharing arrangements to beneficiaries who use these preferred cost-sharing pharmacies. Plans market these lower cost-sharing arrangements, which are appealing to beneficiaries looking to save money on their prescription drugs. However, in some instances, these pharmacies were not geographically accessible to the beneficiaries in the plan.
In our analysis of Part D beneficiary access to preferred cost-sharing pharmacies (https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/
We took action. In last year's (2016) Medicare Advantage Rate Notice and Part D Call Letter (https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/
Plans responded. We are pleased to share that, based on data we are posting on cms.gov today (https://www.cms.gov/Medicare/
This is just one example of ways CMS and Part D sponsors are working together to improve Medicare beneficiaries' access to benefits.
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