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| DATE | 2019-01-28 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
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| SUBJECT | Re: [Hangout - NYLXS] Community Pharmacy is being destroyed by the
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https://www.amny.com/news/nyc-pharmacy-drug-prices-1.26548424?fbclid=IwAR3XGiLsfsZiN5c3hcvS53m9r134BXk3JBJokRhahRRG78GdyeMZelgVslE
\Local pharmacies concerned about future: 'We're on track to be bankrupt'
More than 500 pharmacies in the city say reimbursements put their
business in jeopardy.
Community pharmacists are worried they will have to
Community pharmacists are worried they will have to cut back hours or
staff, a recent survey says. Photo Credit: Corey Sipkin
By Nicole Brown
nicole.brown-at-amny.com -at-ncb417
Updated January 28, 2019 4:11 PM
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Nearly 500 neighborhood pharmacies in the city are considering cutting
hours or staff this year because of financial concerns, according to a
recent survey.
Small pharmacies are being “choked” by pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs)
that control how much they get reimbursed for drugs purchased by
customers through insurance plans. Acting as a middleman between
insurers and pharmacies, PBMs charge insurers and pay the pharmacy,
rather than the insurer paying the pharmacy directly. But the price the
pharmacy gets from the PBM can be less than what it originally paid for
the drug, according to multiple pharmacists.
“The pharmacy is the only business where you actually lose money when
you give out a product,” said Keith Lewis, the supervising pharmacist
and owner of the 79th Street Pharmacy on the Upper West Side.
A customer shops at NoLita Chemists at 208 A customer shops at NoLita
Chemists at 208
A customer shops at NoLita Chemists at 208 Mott St. on Jan. 24. Photo
Credit: Corey Sipkin
According to a survey of 532 pharmacies, conducted by the New York City
Pharmacists Society in early January, 99 percent are concerned that PBM
practices will jeopardize their business in 2019, 70 percent had already
reduced store hours or laid off employees in 2018 because of the PBMs
and 92 percent were considering making cuts this year, a spokesman for
the NYC Pharmacists Society said.
“Over the last year, I’ve cut everything that I could cut,” said Nicky
Legakis, pharmacist and the owner of NoLita Chemists, which has been in
the neighborhood for about 30 years. “We’ve cut our store hours, we’ve
cut the staff and I cut my pay a long time ago … we’re on track to be
bankrupt and destroyed.”
The contracts that PBMs have with insurers are private, so pharmacists
don’t know how much the insurer pays for the drug or how much the PMBs
are pocketing.
“The number one thing we need in our industry is transparency,” said
Vincent Mazzamuto, pharmacist and co-owner of Sedgwick Pharmacy, which
has been in the north Bronx since 1978. “No one knows how these PBMs
operate.”
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