Illinois paid $4.7 million to more than 70 independent pharmacies to help offset inadequate reimbursement from filling prescriptions for Medicaid beneficiaries, according to The State Journal-Register.
Four things to know:
1. The payments were made under the Critical Access Pharmacy program, intended to help small, independent pharmacies that fill Medicaid prescriptions without being sufficiently reimbursed.
2. The independent pharmacies have blamed reimbursement problems on pharmacy benefit managers hired by the state to administer pharmacy benefits for the Medicaid program.
3. "Right now, if we didn't get those [state] funds, we'd be out of business," Owen Sullivan, owner of Sullivan Drugs told the Journal. "We've been around since 1930. They've [PBMs] undercut us to the point we can't survive."
4. Most of the payments went to independent pharmacies in rural areas of the state, according to the report.
Access the full report here.