Under fire from community pharmacy
groups, officials in Delaware
have abandoned controversial plans to
add an optional mail-order component
to the state's Medicaid program. Earlier
this year, program officials in Wilmington
proposed making mail order
part of the state's Medicaid Rx program.
The scheme drew strenuous
objections from EPIC pharmacies in
Delaware as well as from national pharmacy
groups.
Representatives of the National
Community Pharmacists Association
(NCPA) warned that the mail-order
plan would harm the state's poorest citizens
who currently "benefit from face-to-face contact with their community
pharmacist." According to NCPA, "the
proposed goal of ‘quality improvement'
for Medicaid recipients would not be
accomplished by the use of mail order."
Mr. Rankin is a freelance medical writer.