I'm watching the local Pensacola, Florida, news right now, and they just had a segment on the most recent Medicare D insurance fiasco. Many of the insurance companies have not been paying the pharmacies for the drugs they've provided--even though the insurance companies approved these people's prescriptions and have been collecting payments from the insured.
At least one pharmacy has already become so far in the hole because of this nonpayment that it has been forced to shut its doors. Others are owed tens of thousands of dollars, some over $100,000, and they have no idea when they will ever get paid by the insurers for prescriptions they have dispensed.
Some of them, especially the smaller local pharmacies, are worried that they won't be able to stay open much longer. If they do manage to stay open, they're having to eat the loss of smaller payments than they've been bringing in. Why is it always the small businesses that get the shaft under this administration?
The broadcast had a little more information than what they have on their website, but below the fold is some of the online article (lightly edited).
When the new federal prescription drug program rolled out, many people went to the pharmacy counter to find out their insurance was no good.
Now it's the pharmacists who are having problems. Many are short tens of thousands of dollars, and at least one has closed its doors...
When we first reported on the Medicare prescription drug plan, there seemed to be one word to describe it.
Richard Wyche, Medicare recipient: "Confusion, confusion and more confusion."
Some patients weren't in the computer system ... those that were found themselves being asked to pay more out of pocket.
But now??...
Pharmacist Julie Booth-Moran [of Century Pharmacy] says just as the kinks are getting worked out on the customer side, pharmacists are facing another problem: Payments from insurance companies have been few and far between...
"For us we have about 130 thousand dollars out."
In a business where pharmacists usually get reimbursed every week, she's gone 8 weeks with only one check ... and she has no idea why.
Sally Fairman of Pfeiffer Drug said they're owed "tens of thousands of dollars. We've probably received half what we expected." She says it's a problem she never expected. "It wasn't until the end of January that we discovered there would be some plans who were going to withhold checks from us."
Booth-Moran: "As it is right now we're in a severe cash crunch."
Both Fairman and Booth-Moran have enough cash reserves to stay open [for now!]. But the situation has been enough to push the Atmore family pharmacy over the edge... Owner Rusty Sheldt, who declined to comment on camera, says he was having problems before. He thought he could make it... but the payments just never came.
For those pharmacies that do make it, they can plan on lower profit margins... They've learned Medicare Part D doesn't pay as much.
Booth-Moran: "It's a whole lot less profitable; it's probably cut about 6 percent in our gross margin... Right now it's 100 percent less profitable because we don't have any money."
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