NCPA drops lawsuit
By HME News Staff
Updated 9:10 AM CDT, Mon June 13, 2022
ALEXANDRIA, Val. – The National Community Pharmacists Association and the American Pharmacists Association have voluntarily dismissed their lawsuit in the wake of a new CMS rule on Part D that they hope makes it unnecessary. The NCPA filed the lawsuit in the closing days of the Trump administration, after multiple administrations failed to address retroactive pharmacy direct and indirect renumeration (DIR) fees. “We’ve been fighting in Congress for years to end retroactive pharmacy DIR fees and lower prescription costs for seniors and protect small business pharmacies,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey. “We’ve been working with HHS and CMS for years on a regulatory solution, and more than a year ago we strategically filed a lawsuit in case the other two roads were blocked. We are cautiously optimistic that the new Part D rule satisfies the goals we had for the lawsuit.” Pharmacy DIR is a catchall term used to describe various price concessions required by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) to participate in Medicare Part D. These concessions have grown by more than 107,000% since 2010, according to CMS, inflating the prescription drug costs of seniors, the NCPA says. These concessions are also assessed retroactively, often months after the transaction, making it impossible for pharmacies to keep up with and predict the cost of these transactions, the association says.
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