Ways & Means Anti-Fraud Bill Included In SGR Deal Minus Pharmacy Lock-In Policy

The House package to permanently replace the Sustainable Growth Rate includes the House Ways & Means Committee's wide-ranging Medicare anti-fraud bill, but it excludes a provision restricting potential drug abusers to tight networks of pharmacies and providers. Community pharmacists, beneficiary advocates, and doctors had raised concerns about the concept of locking beneficiaries into one or more prescribers and pharmacies, but others, including the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, supported it. A beneficiary advocate says the House likely dropped the measure because...