Client News
The Tampa Tribune: Letters to the editor: Fairness for pharmacies
Monday, September 16, 2013
By Robert S. Hoye, C.R. Ph.
As professional compounding pharmacists, we at Hoye’s Pharmacy support the concept of audits to ensure the integrity of public and private health-care programs and to prevent fraud, waste and abuse in third-party billing for prescription claims. But what we see repeatedly is that, under current auditing practices, legitimate pharmacy businesses — and their abilities to serve prescribers and patients — are being unintentionally harmed.
We believe fair, responsible, common-sense standards must guide auditors. All too frequently, auditors currently penalize pharmacists for clerical or typographical errors wholly unrelated to fraud. Also, pharmacy businesses are not notified they will be audited and not allowed to dispute audit findings.
In this regard, on Sept. 4 we welcomed state Rep. Dana Young to our pharmacy. We were grateful for the opportunity to discuss legislation and voice our concerns regarding fair pharmacy audit practices by Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) groups.
Enacting reasonable standards will allow fairness in the process, and all parties — PBMs, pharmacies of all sizes, and patients — will know what to expect and when. We all abhor fraud, which hurts everyone and must be targeted.
We support a set of reasonable standards, including a requirement that audits be conducted by a Florida-licensed pharmacist and allowing 10 days for pharmacists to produce documentation addressing any alleged discrepancies.
We hope our concerned state representatives will support legislation to bring fairness to pharmacy audits, allowing us to better serve our patients.