The Side Effects of Our Healthcare Crisis

An article on the front page of the Dallas Morning News set me off this morning. Check out this story “Small drugstores can’t swallow prospect of slashed payments”.

I applaud Angela Shah, the writer, and the Dallas Morning News for putting the spotlight on this “hot issue”. Reimbursement rates for pharmacies (Medicaid, Medicare, and Insurance) have been an issue for quite some time. However, the new Medicaid reimbursement rate effective in January ’08 could destroy one of the most respected professions in the nation.

Despite the fact that Pharmacists went into this profession to help their patients, Pharmacies will be forced to make a business decision. They will either have to close their doors or turn away their Medicaid patients. Neither choice is good for the patient or the community.

Thanks to Medicare Part-D, 1000 pharmacies were forced to close their doors in 2006. Now with the new Medicaid reimbursement rate, they are predicting an additional 2300 will close in early ’08 (click here for article). Do you know what closing a pharmacy does to a community? There are small towns across America who do not have a pharmacy because the pharmacy could not afford to stay in business. When the pharmacy leaves, the doctor(s) leave, and then the hospital closes its doors. Since the patients now go to another town to see their doctor and get their prescription filled, they do all their shopping in that neighboring town. It is a huge domino effect.

As for the pharmacies that don’t close, the best “business decision” for them would be to not accept Medicaid.

So, now that we have all these stores closing and the remaining independents turning away Medicaid patients, who will service all those patients? Sure the chains can pick up a little slack but how much more can they really handle? Have you seen how busy those pharmacists are in the chains? If all these independent pharmacies close, the chains won’t be able to handle the massive volume of patients coming to them. The result is an increase in prescription errors which could result in more health problems for the patients which could lead sometimes to a coma or death. Death is a nasty side effect for patients to pay because the Government won’t fix our healthcare crisis.

We as patients and citizens of this nation need to write our Representatives and demand that they solve our healthcare crisis A.S.A.P.

Pharmacy Owners if you are looking for a way to reach out and educate your patients in a cost-effective manner, we encourage you to check out Pharm Aid online. A great resource for the pharmacy community.