When safe access to pharmaceutical care is removed, America's health care system is negatively impacted. I’m asking once again for your voice to save our access to local pharmacies and save the lives of patients like my son, an organ transplant survivor.
Someone once asked me who was the most critical provider to my son’s care? I replied, “The transplant surgeon.” They disagreed and informed me that it was the pharmacist. I laughed it off. That was many years prior to my advocacy. Today, I admit that I was wrong. My son’s organ transplant surgeon couldn’t have done his job without the help of the pharmacist. My son's life relies on medications every 12 hours, and his life is equally held in the hands of his pharmacy staff as one wrong move could put his life in jeopardy.
As America’s pharmaceutical care is under attack by corporate greed, today, the most important person to his life and lives of other patients is you, along with your voice.
The Federal Trade Commission or FTC is accepting comments on the many ways that pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) such as Optum RX, CVS Caremark, and Express Scripts harm patients. PBMs work between the insurance company and the pharmacies and are often referred to as middlemen. They each have merged with an insurance company and own their own mail order pharmacies that they force patients to use. CVS Caremark will often steer to their own retail pharmacies heavily covered across news headlines for understaffing as CVS is positioned high on the list of wealthiest corporations in our nation.
PBMs also oversee reimbursements to their own pharmacies and have been caught reimbursing their own pharmacies more while purposefully under reimbursing our local independent and hospital pharmacies below their cost of medications to the point that many have closed, creating pharmacy deserts. PBMs also play a role in determining which medications are included on the list of medications covered which is often based upon the highest kickback that they receive from drug manufacturers, not necessarily the medicine that is the best for you.
There are many other issues and complaints. You can scroll through some of the complaints from the FTC here.
I’m pleading with you today to please save the lives of patients like my son by leaving a comment on the FTC’s comment section. Click browse all documents. Click comment. Please know just a simple one or two sentences can help, such as:
"Patients should have a choice in pharmacy."
"PBMs shouldn't be able to force to their own pharmacies."
"Patients shouldn't be forced to risk their lives with mail order pharmacy."
"Our local pharmacies are important to public health and should be protected from the anti-competitive practices of PBMs."
Thank you,
Loretta Boesing, Patient Advocate & Founder of Unite for Safe Medications
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Email: Loretta@uniteforsafemedications.com