Medicaid cuts...

[Aznfarmerboi]

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I believe it is something that students should be aware of... and even practicing pharmacists.

Lately in the news, there has been a lot of articles on doctors not taking in new Medicare patients or operating on losses due to low reimbursements. I just want to point out that for independent pharmacy, this issue is 10 times worse. Since Medicare was introduced (when I was still in pharmacy school), many independents went out of business due to payment lag time and low reimbursements.

Now, with states cutting everything, I can see more pharmacies going out of business. Besides Medicare, Medicaid in New York has cut reimbursements more than twice last year! I just tried filling a claim for silver sulfad. and was reimbursed below my wholesaler price.

This is a drug that costs 4 dollars to acquire and we are getting paid less than that.

 

[xiphoid2010]

I believe it is something that students should be aware of... and even practicing pharmacists.

Lately in the news, there has been a lot of articles on doctors not taking in new Medicare patients or operating on losses due to low reimbursements. I just want to point out that for independent pharmacy, this issue is 10 times worse. Since Medicare was introduced (when I was still in pharmacy school), many independents went out of business due to payment lag time and low reimbursements.

Now, with states cutting everything, I can see more pharmacies going out of business. Besides Medicare, Medicaid in New York has cut reimbursements more than twice last year! I just tried filling a claim for silver sulfad. and was reimbursed below my wholesaler price.

This is a drug that costs 4 dollars to acquire and we are getting paid less than that.

Then don't take them. Unless you are in a bad neighborhood, you can probably go without them.

 

[Doctor M]

I believe it is something that students should be aware of... and even practicing pharmacists.

Lately in the news, there has been a lot of articles on doctors not taking in new Medicare patients or operating on losses due to low reimbursements. I just want to point out that for independent pharmacy, this issue is 10 times worse. Since Medicare was introduced (when I was still in pharmacy school), many independents went out of business due to payment lag time and low reimbursements.

Now, with states cutting everything, I can see more pharmacies going out of business. Besides Medicare, Medicaid in New York has cut reimbursements more than twice last year! I just tried filling a claim for silver sulfad. and was reimbursed below my wholesaler price.

This is a drug that costs 4 dollars to acquire and we are getting paid less than that.

How do you do in the rest of the scripts you fill for medicaid? We lose on a couple of rx's here in fl, but we make a killing on some others. I guess the way we look at it is this: so you lose a dollar on an SSD cream, but hopefully that patient has another rx that pays well. For example, we had a pt today that had hydroxyzine pam 100 capsules and we lost like $15 on the claim. She also had risperdal and we made over $100 gross...and she had lansoprazole and we made a good buck. I guess we look at the overall picture. As long as we stay above 22% gm and average at least $15 an rx we are good. Anything below that and that is a sign something is wrong for us. your gonna have losing scripts here and there. They've been cutting reimbursement for years...