National
COMMUNITY
PHARMACISTS
Association
205 Daingerfield Rd.
Alexandria, VA
22314-2885
703-683-8200
800-544-7447
FAX
703-683-3619
Narrow Therapeutic Index Medications
NCPA supports the continued right of the pharmacist to utilize
his or her professional judgment when deciding whether to substitute a
chemically equivalent generic product for a brand-name pharmaceutical
product in all therapeutic categories, including narrow therapeutic index
medications. NCPA believes that payors, including government, should
equitably compensate pharmacists for dispensing either brand or generic
narrow therapeutic range medications so as not to penalize the pharmacist
for making the appropriate clinical decisions on behalf of his or her
patients.
Nationwide
Prescriber Identification Number (PIN) System
Drug use review is an effective means to improve the health and
safety of prescription drug consumers and is an effective means of health
care cost containment. Effective drug use review requires the ability to
identify the consumer, the pharmacist, and the prescriber. This data is
also necessary to submit claims on behalf of consumers to third-party
prescription programs. NCPA will work with organized medicine, health care
insurers, health care claims processors, health care computer software
suppliers, and governmental agencies to develop a nationwide prescriber
identification numbering system that would be readily available to health
care providers, regionalized for easy use, and acceptable to and
recognized by all health care payers.
NDC
Numbers
NCPA urges pharmaceutical manufacturers
to display NDC numbers conspicuously in contrasting colors in no smaller
than six-point boldface type on all prescription drug product
labels.
New USP Environmental Standards
NCPA
encourages the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) to adopt new
recommendations for drug shipping, storage, and handling related to
humidity and temperature control standards. The conformance to such USP
recommendations is essential to maintaining the integrity and viability of
environmentally sensitive pharmaceutical materials because it has been
determined that the effectiveness of such materials is compromised by
humidity and temperature excesses, thereby resulting in failure to control
serious illnesses and, on occasion, death of affected
patients:
NCPA further requests and encourages appropriate federal
and state regulatory agencies to take appropriate action to adopt and
enforce the new USP standards for drug shipping, storage, and handling.
Such recommendations should be applied to all providers that share
responsibility for the integrity of pharmaceutical materials that are
determined and found to be compromised by environmental excesses including
humidity and temperature.
Patient Access to Responsible Care
NCPA
encourages and supports legislation that would ensure the right of
patients to receive quality care in their "managed care" plan and, when
necessary, to sue such plan or system that fails to provide quality care
or limits patients? access to providers.
Patient
Confidentiality
NCPA strenuously opposes
electronic prescription transmission programs or manufacturers? marketing
programs, such as patient information or poverty relief, that violate the
integrity and confidentiality of the face-to-face relationship between the
patient and the community pharmacist. NCPA supports explicit patient
medical releases that prevent patient-specific data from being extracted,
provided. or sold to extraneous parties without the informed and expressed
written consent of the patient.
Patients' Bill
of Rights
NCPA urges both the public and
private sector to respect patients' rights with respect to health care
providers, products, and pharmacy services by adopting the following
Patients' Bill of Rights:
Rights Related to Choice of
Provider:
The pharmacy patient has the right:
- To seek a qualified and competent provider
- To choose from among the wide variety of providers
available in the marketplace
- To receive definitive information regarding available
services, so as to make an informed choice of
provider
The pharmacy patient has the right:
- To receive any legally prescribed product, realizing
this may require the patient to bear the expense of such a
choice
- To ask for and receive any supplier's product that will
legally fill a generically written prescription
- To know the supplier of any product received
- To have knowledge of alternative dosage forms available
and to request an alternative from the
physician
The pharmacy patient has the right:
- To direct, one-to-one access to the
pharmacist
- To receive from the pharmacist information,
instructions, and services regarding safety and cost-effectiveness of
drug therapy. This includes the right to information pertinent to
product selection when allowed
- To expect the pharmacist to maintain a patient
medication record to promote good drug therapy
- To receive courteous service
- To clearly posted information on services available and
on hours of service, including information on after-hours emergency
service and how to obtain it
- To expect the pharmacist to be a public source of drug
information
- To receive continuity of pharmacy services, for
example, in the course of discharge from an acute care or extended care
facility to the community
- To confidentiality in the handling of personal as well
as drug and other health-related information
Patient Counseling
Because patient counseling by pharmacists contributes to quality patient care, NCPA supports mandatory counseling consistent with the professional judgment of the pharmacist.
A principal barrier to assuring the availability of
pharmacist counseling has been the failure of private and public third
parties to pay for such preventative services. The 1990 Medicaid
Amendments required, effective 1993, counseling for willing Medicaid
patients subject to the pharmacist's professional judgment. Nevertheless,
the Health Care Financing Administration has not required or even
encouraged payment to pharmacists for counseling Medicare patients. NCPA
petitions HCFA to require payment for community pharmacist counseling
under Medicaid.
Patient Package
Inserts (PPIs)
NCPA supports a comprehensive
patient drug education role for independent retail pharmacists. NCPA
opposes, however, legislation or regulations that mandate patient package
inserts for prescription drugs or that restrict or deny the appropriate
exercise of the pharmacist's professional discretion in determining what
drug information should be provided to patients.
P.D.
Designation
The profession of pharmacy has
reached a point where its practitioners should be using a uniform
professional designation. The continued use of multiple designations
serves only to confuse the public. NCPA supports the use of P.D. (Doctor
of Pharmacy) by all pharmacists. The association also urges state pharmacy
associations to endorse the P.D. designation.
Pharmacist
Care
Medication without benefit of pharmacist
care is no bargain. Pharmacists provide professional services to ensure
that pharmaceuticals, a commodity, are taken properly and that the full
benefit of drug therapy can be achieved. NCPA is committed to advancing
the goals of pharmacist care, and to that end has created the National
Institute for Pharmacist Care Outcomes. All independent pharmacists are
strongly encouraged to provide pharmacist care for the benefit of their
patients, and to take advantage of the certification programs offered by
NIPCO, which is dedicated to achieving optimal patient health through
pharmacist-directed disease management and wellness programs.
NCPA supports a testing process that includes demonstration of pharmacist care skills based on case studies, and that leads to pharmacist credentialing according to National Institute for Standards in Pharmacist Credentialing (NISPC) criteria.
NCPA supports federal and model state legislation that
offers compensation to pharmacists for disease management. NCPA further
supports federal legislation and encourages states to enact legislation to
permit patients with health benefit plans to pay for products and services
in addition to what their plan provides.
Copyright 1999: National Community Pharmacists Association. All Rights Reserved.