Reduced Medicaid fees for pharmacists

The US federal government is aiming to save $8.4 billion over the next five years by reducing payments to pharmacies for dispensing drugs under the Medicaid program.

The new regulation ensures that Medicaid can obtain prescription drugs at the same reduced prices as those obtained by pharmacy benefit managers or mail-order pharmacies, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The effect could be to hit revenues for smaller pharmacies especially hard, according to the North Carolina-headquartered Association of Community Pharmacists Congressional Network. A spokesman for the ACP*CN said: "the federal government seems determined to annihilate the best medication delivery system in the world with its latest ill-conceived cost savings plan."