Reduced Reimbursements

The North Carolina pharmacy community wants to serve the people of North Carolina with quality pharmaceutical services. The reimbursement levels for these services have been reduced in the last few years so that pharmacy owners now find themselves with reimbursement levels from some plans that do not cover their costs. These pharmacist managers are faced with the difficult decision of when and if to stop accepting these plans.

Pharmacists want to help patients and have continued to accept reduced fees because of commitment to their patients and their community. Because the State Health Plan covers so many lives, its recently reduced dispensing fees have resulted in some pharmacy operations making independent business decisions to discontinue participation in this program. This difficult business decision was made reluctantly, but the reduced income for pharmacy operations is significant.

There are approximately 1,500 community pharmacies in North Carolina, so these reductions in dispensing fees can have a great effect on each pharmacy operation. The reduction in pharmacist fees for the State Health Plan cost the North Carolina pharmacy community $86.9 million in 2001-2002 and is projected to be $105.8 million in 2002-2003.