(Washington, DC)—The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) issued the following response to today’s statement by the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA):

“PCMA member companies have routinely paid clean claims within 30-days and have publicly pledged to continue doing so. Before rushing to judgment on the issue of ‘prompt pay,’ Congress should commission GAO to conduct an independent study to explore this issue generally and the role played by Pharmacy Service Administrative Organizations (PSAOs) particularly.

“PSAOs are the middlemen that thousands of drugstores hire to serve as billing intermediaries between payers and themselves. Often independent drugstores require payers to send reimbursements to PSAOs — which in turn process and forward payments to pharmacies. This ‘middle step’ could be causing delays even when Part D sponsors pay PSAOs on time. Regardless, requiring Part D sponsors to pay drugstores in 14 days is twice as fast as the 30-day payment cycle afforded Medicare physicians and hospitals and exceeds the payment requirements of 43 states.

“Furthermore, creating anti-trust exemptions for independent drugstores will only lead to increased costs for consumers. In any case, most independent drugstores already hire PSAOs to collectively bargain on their behalf for better terms with public and private payers.

“On another note, we agree that the current AMP (Average Manufacturer Price) calculation is unfair, inaccurate and should be changed.”

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PCMA is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which administer prescription drug plans for more than 210 million Americans with health coverage provided through Fortune 500 employers, health insurance plans, labor unions, and Medicare Part D.