Dispensing Dispensations

Harkening back to my days of studying Western Civilization, I remember in the 1400s-1500s, certain corrupt Catholic officials sold dispensations from canon law. According to a recent study from the Workers’ Compensation Research Institute, and as reported by Louise Esola in Business Insurance, certain corrupt providers/drug manufacturers are still abusing dispensing protocols.

Most of our readers know about the exorbitant costs that may arise when drugs are dispensed to injured workers by physicians. Many states passed reforms and formularies that targeted repackaged wholesale pricing of certain drug strengths.

Unfortunately, Big Pharma “dispensed” with many of these controls by introducing new versions of common scripts to avoid the regulation. For example, a popular, reasonably-priced muscle relaxer has been used for years in the 5 milligram and 10 milligram strengths. Now, Big Pharma has seen fit to introduce a new 7.5 milligram dosage that is not covered by the dispensing reform. Surprise, surprise — this new unregulated 7.5 milligram expensive dosage is now the strength of choice of some rogue providers.

Joe Paduda, president of CompPharma LLC, is quoted as saying, “The single most powerful thing states can do would be to allow employers to direct injured workers to use contracted pharmacies.” Of course, we have already accomplished this in Kentucky through OMCA’s pharmacy-only MCO.

At OMCA, we treat prescribers/dispensers as providers, and only the providers we select make it into our certified managed care networks.

Dispense with rogue providers–that’s the dispensation we are selling.

 

Call us. We can do better.

William Faris, JD
Chief Executive Officer
502-495-5040
william.faris@omca.biz
www.omca.biz

Posted in Uncategorized