NCPA Gives Another Push for Pharmacy Accreditation Exemption

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — With Senate and House leaders trying to craft a health care reform bill to send to the White House, the National Community Pharmacists Association has once again called for the legislation to exempt pharmacists from DMEPOS accreditation.

The association has been pushing hard for such an exemption from CMS' accreditation mandate, arguing the agency has already let 17 other medical providers off the hook but is requiring pharmacists to undergo a "time-consuming, expensive and redundant" process since they are already subject to regulations and fines at the state level. NCPA officials have also said that while the accreditation regulation is supposed to prevent fraud, there is little evidence that pharmacists are involved.

In a Jan. 6 letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., NCPA said the final reform measure should "assure seniors access to essential durable medical equipment (DME) by adopting the Senate's proposal to exempt from Medicare's burdensome, duplicative accreditation requirements those pharmacies that derive no more than five percent of total prescription sales from DME, such as diabetes testing supplies."

As the October 2009 accreditation deadline approached, Congress gave pharmacists a 90-day extension until Dec. 31, and there are provisions in both the House and Senate reform bills that would permanently exempt certain pharmacies from the requirement. Even so, the NCPA is encouraging its members — some 23,000 independent pharmacies across the country — to complete accreditation.

So is CMS. In a late December memo, the agency said it would continue to process accreditation determinations for pharmacies after Jan. 1 but also noted pharmacies should complete their applications "as soon as possible."  Revocations for those not meeting the requirement "will be prioritized based on any potential beneficiary access issues as well as the agency's workload," according to the memo.

The NCPA also asks that a pharmacy surety bond exemption included in the House bill be part of the final legislation.

In other recommendations for the health reform bill, the NCPA said it should: