As an independent community pharmacist, you’ve probably joined the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA). But it’s not always easy to keep up with the details of what that membership actually does for your individual pharmacy. That’s why we sat down with Douglas Hoey, R.Ph., MBA, chief executive officer of NCPA, to discuss the current pharmacy landscape, to take a fresh look at what NCPA’s working on today and to look ahead at what’s in store for pharmacies in the future.
What is NCPA all about?
We’re probably best known for our legislative efforts. We work to prevent legislation or regulations that would harm community pharmacies’ businesses and their patients, and we also help get legislation passed and regulations implemented that are beneficial to them.
But if you take a step back, I think we exist to act as a megaphone for the voices of the 23,000 community pharmacies in the nation, the 60,000 pharmacists that work at those stores, the 300,000 employees at those stores and the millions of patients who walk through their doors. We act as a megaphone for all of those voices.
Why is it important for independent community pharmacists to join NCPA?
For a number of reasons, but one is that ability to have that unified and coordinated voice. Pharmacy has a small number of health care providers. We have about 300,000 pharmacists in the country compared to about 1 million physicians, for example. And even when physicians try to flex their legislative muscle, sometimes it’s still dictated to them how their practices will run. That just shows that to increase community pharmacies’ chances of success, we have to have a unified and coordinated voice.
Tell us about the overall vision of NCPA.
The broad vision is to create an environment that allows community pharmacies to be more successful. We can’t make them successful or unsuccessful, but we can help create an environment that fosters success. And we break down that vision into two buckets. The first is the issues of here and now. What are the things that are affecting our members today? The second is trying to see around the corner. What are those things in the future that we think will affect our members and how do we help them prepare?
What are the benefits of being a NCPA member?
There’s the somewhat transparent benefit of when potentially harmful legislation or regulation is prevented from happening. The pharmacy never actually feels the sting from that because we caught it before it got to them.
For example, a few years ago in the Medicare Part D program, the insurance plans weren’t paying the pharmacies for months at a time. And we were able to get prompt pay legislation passed that requires the insurance plans in Part D to pay pharmacies much more quickly.
Another benefit is that we help pharmacies see what’s coming. They’re busy running their businesses. They’re busy managing their employees. They don’t always have time to try to look into the crystal ball and see what’s coming in the future.
My dad was a pharmacy owner. I worked for him both as a kid and as a pharmacist. He made the comment to me once or twice that sometimes as a business owner, you’re out there and you feel like you’re on an island by yourself. Because you’re handling the personnel issues and the business management issues that maybe you weren’t trained for in your education. NCPA is that lifeline to pharmacists who feel like they’re out there on an island by themselves. We take it seriously at NCPA that we have a responsibility to provide leadership for what’s coming.
What are the main concerns that you’re hearing from independent community pharmacists today?
Our members’ top two priorities for us are access to preferred networks and the delays in MAC payment updates. On that second one, the issue isn’t generic products going up in price. That’s a symptom. The root problem is that the payment that we get for those products doesn’t go up for weeks at a time. Right now, the pain from the delays in MAC payment updates is the biggest problem area for the membership from what we’re hearing.
What is NCPA doing to address those concerns?
For years NCPA has been working with federal Medicare officials and advocating about problems in Part D, including the MAC payment issue. This past January, February and March, with the help of dozens of other pharmacy stakeholders, we were able to make a change. Starting in 2016, Medicare has mandated that Part D plans have to update their MAC prices every seven days. That’s an important breakthrough. It doesn’t start until 2016 and it’s only in Part D, but that’s an enormous breakthrough. Also, NCPA supported the work in the states so now 16 states have passed MAC legislation.
There’s a certain amount of NCPA’s work that’s behind the scenes, that we just can’t put on a message board or throw in a newsletter. We’re talking with other stakeholders right now who can help affect the MAC issue, but we can’t say, “Oh we have a meeting with so and so” because it would betray those relationships. But behind the scenes, we’re having a number of meetings and expressing the dire situation of these generic products being paid under cost.
We’ve also asked for a Congressional hearing on the generic price increases and we’ve been referenced in The New York Times about this call for a Congressional hearing. We worked with some large television stations that have done some news segments on the generic price increases.
Our name wasn’t on it, but we helped in the crafting of those news segments.
On the preferred networks issue, we’ve gotten some legislation—H.R.4577, The Ensuring Seniors Access to Local Pharmacies Act of 2014—introduced that would give Medicare seniors in medically-underserved areas more choice and access to prescription drugs. We have more than 60 co-sponsors now, but we need a lot more and we’re going to need something introduced in the Senate as well.
To bring attention to that cause, NCPA has recently put together two national radio campaigns with interviews on the importance of opening up preferred networks to pharmacies. These and other resources are available on a website dedicated to the preferred pharmacy issue. We’ve also formed the Any Willing Pharmacy Coalition with other like-minded stakeholders who are working with NCPA to unify and coordinate our actions.
Those radio ads, the media, resources. And that comes from the membership. Our membership is pretty inexpensive, but every dollar goes to doing things that are going to help pharmacy owners be more successful.
How can NCPA members help?
About 60 people work at NCPA. We’re a mid-sized association. The opposition has more lobbyists than we have staff members—and a lot more money. But we have the 23,000 pharmacy locations, the 60,000 pharmacists, the 300,000 employees of those pharmacies and the millions of patients walking through their doors. The power NCPA has is acting as a megaphone for the voice of our members.
From a legislative and regulatory standpoint, members can help by getting in touch with their legislators. It’s important to develop relationships and invite those legislators into their pharmacies. We’ve been suggesting that to pharmacies for about seven or eight years. There have probably been 300 or 400 pharmacy visits from that, which is fantastic. But there needs to be a lot more.
What are the big issues for the future?
We have to be thinking about pharmacies being part of high-performing pharmacy networks. Pharmacies need to do well with plan Star Ratings. Pharmacies also have to be allowed to provide specialty pharmaceuticals because there’s a correlation between being part of a high-performing pharmacy network and being able to provide specialty pharmaceuticals. Those are probably the big three.
What is the state of the pharmacy industry today?
The environment is challenging. Things are changing. I hear some people say, “It’s not like it used to be.” But on the other hand, I also hear from some who are adapting very well to the changes. While it’s hard, they’re still doing well. They’re still optimistic. And, any time we talk about how pharmacy is doing, we need to talk about the care for our patients. I think the ability to take care of our patients is changing rapidly. But over time and through history, who or what has changed better than a community pharmacy? We’re the laboratories of innovation for our profession. So, it’s different and it’s changing, but there are still a lot of successful people out there, and the most successful benefactors are the patients who get the customized care of a community pharmacist.
Your annual convention is coming up. What do attendees have to look forward to?
Officially we use “Learn. Meet. Succeed.,” which describes the experience of those who attend. Unofficially, the theme of the convention is going to be about high-performing pharmacies and how to make your pharmacy perform like one. We even have a post-convention program called, Networking for High Performance Pharmacies, that will tackle questions like: What is a high-performing pharmacy?; Are you one?; How can you be one?; How can you affiliate with other high-performing pharmacies?; and What does a high-performing pharmacy mean to payers? That’s an important aspect to look forward to this year.
About the expert
Douglas Hoey, R.Ph., MBA, chief executive officer of the National Community Pharmacists Association, has spent more than 20 years working in and representing independent community pharmacies.
Are you attending?
NCPA 2014 Annual Convention
October 18 – 22, 2014
Austin, Texas
Featured speakers:
Guy Kawasaki
This year’s keynote speaker is Guy Kawasaki, a Silicon Valley author, motivational speaker, investor, and management advisor who will share his business and marketing acumen. “We chose him specifically because he’s very business- oriented,” said Douglas Hoey, NCPA CEO.
Dave Carroll
“We invited him because of his metamorphosis with customer and business relationships,” Hoey said. “He was on a United Airlines flight and they ruined his guitar and wouldn’t fix it. So, he wrote a song called ‘United Breaks Guitars’ that has received 15 million hits on YouTube. Big businesses used to be able to brush off customers, but now they can’t because of the power of the consumer via social media. We want to look at how members can use his experiences to help their businesses.”
Find out more on NCPA’s website.
Related articles:
Why Joining Your State Pharmacy Association Matters
A Voice for Community Pharmacy: Senator Jerry Moran
Health Care Reform: 8 Frequently Asked Questions
