Ensuring Access to Affordable, Innovative Treatments & Cures
Patients deserve timely access to affordable, innovative medicines, treatments, and cures. There are over 1.9 million people in Mississippi with at least 1 chronic disease, and the projected total cost of chronic disease from 2016-2030 in Mississippi is $405 billion. They should not be faced with barriers to receive the care they need to maintain their health. Legislators in Mississippi have a number of policies they can pursue to put affordable and innovative medicines and treatments into patients’ hands.
On behalf of patients and families in Mississippi, we urge state legislators to:
- Require insurers and PBMs to share the benefit of rebates and negotiated discounts directly with patients at the point-of-sale.
- Eliminate copay accumulator programs to ensure that all money paid toward prescriptions on behalf of a patient count toward the patient’s out-of-pocket maximum and annual deductible.
- Streamline Utilization Management protocols, like step therapy, prior authorization, and non-medical switching, to ensure patients access to the right medicines at the right time.
- Ensure federal and state programs designed to support patients work as originally intended – to improve access and health equity for the communities served.
Los Angeles Times: They're called 'co-pay accumulators,' and they're a way insurers make you pay more for meds
Many insurers are introducing so-called copay accumulators to their plans. What this means is that coupons no longer will be counted toward patients' deductibles.
READ MOREFortune: PBMs Are Hogging Our Drug Discounts
In their role as go-betweens, PBMs negotiate big discounts from drugmakers. But rather than passing those savings on to insurers and consumers, they have found ways to pocket many of the proceeds for themselves.
READ MOREClarion Ledger: You're probably overpaying for prescriptions. Mississippi is making it easier to find out.
If you have a copay, chances are you've overpaid for a prescription at some point. That's because an insurance copay can be more expensive than the cash price of the drug — more expensive than if you'd had no insurance and paid out of pocket. And because of "gag clauses" in contracts between pharmacies and the insurance claims payers, you'd never know this. Until now.
READ MOREPatient Access for Mississippi unites voices committed patient-first policies to ensure timely access to innovative, affordable medications, treatments, and cures. The coalition unites all types of stakeholders – patients, healthcare professionals, and business organizations – to ensure a unified strategy to address these issues.
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