For over 30 years RxPlus has engaged in political advocacy at both the state and federal levels on behalf of independent community pharmacies. Throughout the decades, RxPlus has advocated for your stores, your business, and your livelihood. Membership in RxPlus and supporting RxPlus political action and advocacy gives you a powerful voice heard by state and federal elected officials.
RxPlus Achievements
- Defeated legislation that promoted Medicaid mail order.
- Defeated legislation that created a state-sponsored pharmacy discount card.
- Passed legislation that curbed abusive Medicaid contingency audit practices.
- Defeated legislation that would have restricted generic substitution.
- Defeated mandatory Medicaid drug take-back legislation.
- Passed Medication Synchronization legislation.
- Passed telepharmacy legislation and opposing telepharmacy expansion without proper oversight.
- Advocated for Medicaid cost reporting and determined Actual Acquisition Cost and dispensing fees.
- Assisted in the passage of several Pharmacy Practice Acts.
- Passed legislation that prohibits PBMs from:
- Mandating mail order
- Charging excessive fees
- Requiring different accreditations for pharmacies not PBM pharmacies
- Retroactively recouping payments
- Modifying the drug formulary
- Restricting, gaging, or penalizing a pharmacy from offering cheaper alternatives on a customer’s prescription drug
- Passed legislation the requires PBMs to:
- To register with the Division of Insurance
- Conduct fair audits, provide notice, and only perform one audit a year.
- Provide consumers with up-to-date, real-time drug cost, benefit, and coverage
- Provide pharmacies an appeal process for underwater claims under Maximum Allowable Cost (MAC)
2023 Public Policy Efforts include:
Introducing legislation to enforce laws previously passed, through the Division of Insurance, that prohibit Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBMs) from engaging in unfair business practices affecting consumers, pharmacies, or pharmacists and requires PBMs operating in the state of Colorado, to register with the Division of Insurance, (DOI), pay a fee, and be subject to investigation and enforcement for violations of all the current laws listed above.
As well as opposing legislation that criminalizes the dispensing of medication containing any amount of fentanyl, supporting legislation that prohibits preauthorization, step therapy or fail first methods for mental health drugs, prescribing off label, dispensing or refusing to dispense drugs for chronic pain, and creating a program to make epi pens accessible by limiting the cost to $60 for two pens and requiring carriers and manufacturers to make up the difference in cost to the pharmacy.