Time Is Running Out! New Video on Restoring Patient Protections

This should be a familiar topic for our regular readers but nonetheless a very important one!

Last year, New York changed the process by which four million Medicaid recipients obtain prescription drug coverage. The pharmacy benefit was “carved in” to Manage Care instead of a fee for service program. This change resulted in patients losing many protections and has led to confusion, lack of uniformity in coverage and, in some cases, denial of critical medications.

Patient advocates, health care providers and many members of the NYS Legislature are fighting to restore those patient protections in the 2012-2013 budget. They held a press conference last week urging the Legislature and governor to take action. Here’s the video from the event.

Those patient protections included a comprehensive drug formulary, standardization of drug benefits, and maintaining the prescriber’s authority to decide what medicine a patient needs, frequently referred to as ‘prescriber prevails.’

Time is running out! Please contact Governor Cuomo and tell him that patient protections must be reinstated back into the budget this year. You can write the governor via our website here or call his office at 518.474.8390.

-Jaime Venditti, 3/6/12