Advocacy Groups Join Together Against DIR Fees

More than 115 health care organizations and advocacy groups recently signed a letter in support of pharmacy regulations that address direct and indirect remuneration (DIR) fees in a proposed Medicare Part D rule by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), according to a press release from the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA).

The organizations wrote the letter to specifically support the requirement that DIR fees be included in the negotiated price that is available during the point-of-sale, according to the letter.

"NCPA has been relentless in urging CMS to take this action on retroactive DIR fees, and this proposed rule reflects our input. Charged retroactively, DIR fees unnecessarily add costs for patients while creating financial uncertainty for pharmacies,” said NCPA CEO Douglas Hoey, RPh, MBA. “We were pleased the agency announced it is considering a requirement for those price concessions to occur at the point of sale for Medicare beneficiaries. We urge CMS to move forward toward that goal.”

Check out our past coverage of DIR Fees.

Many pharmacists and pharmacy associations have spoken out against DIR fees, saying that the price concessions lack transparency and have caused many pharmacies to shut their doors, in addition to harming patients.

“When it’s not done in real time, we often don’t know for months or almost a year that we are unprofitable on a particular transaction,” Steve Giroux, former NCPA president and independent pharmacist previously told Specialty Pharmacy Times in an interview. “The unfairness of that mechanism has gotten the attention of CMS, and I think we are on the verge of eliminating them entirely. Certainty, gaining a lot more transparency.”

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