Medicare Drug Plans Improve Access To Preferred Pharmacy Networks

CMS said Thursday (Feb. 11) that Medicare drug plans are offering preferred cost-sharing pharmacies that are closer to beneficiaries in response to the agency's intervention. The bottom 10th percentile of Part D plans in 2016 offer access within two miles to 71 percent of urban beneficiaries, as compared to 40 percent of beneficiaries in 2014, according to CMS. Part D plans increasingly are creating networks of lower-cost pharmacies to attract beneficiaries, but agency officials also heard complaints that plans are...