House Passes Accreditation Deadline Extension for Pharmacists; Will Senate Follow?

WASHINGTON — At almost the last minute, the House of
Representatives today passed H.R. 3663, a bill that extends the
accreditation deadline for pharmacies providing DMEPOS from today
to Dec. 31, 2009.

Introduced Wednesday by Reps. Zack Spence, D-Ohio, and Lee
Terry, R-Neb., the extension allows pharmacy providers a bit of
breathing space as Congress debates separate calls to exempt
pharmacies from the accreditation mandate.

The National Community Pharmacy Association, which represents
the owners of more than 23,000 pharmacies, applauded the House’s
vote, saying that the extension is a boon for patients.

“Seniors are the real winners from this vote,” said Bruce T.
Roberts, RPh, NCPA executive vice president and CEO, who campaigned
for the Senate to pass a similar bill today. “This bill would allow
seniors to continue relying on their pharmacists to help manage
diseases like diabetes.”

If Congress doesn’t come together to extend the deadline,
Roberts noted, “tomorrow morning, thousands of community pharmacies
will no longer be able to offer these supplies and patients will
experience an unwelcome disruption in their health care regimen.
The Senate must now act as quickly as possible so the president can
sign it into law.”

Pharmacists’ groups around the nation have argued for months
that pharmacies should be exempt from the CMS mandate, which
requires all providers of Medicare Part B DMEPOS to be accredited
by today. Pharmacies are already heavily regulated in their states,
and accreditation is time consuming and expensive, the associations
argued. As well, they pointed out, dozens of other state-licensed
providers have already been exempted.