In this video from the National Community Pharmacists Association, independent pharmacists speak up about how preferred pharmacy networks negatively impact their customers.

NCPA has endorsed the Ensuring Seniors Access to Local Pharmacies Act of 2015 (S. 1190, H.R. 793), legislation introduced in both the Senate and House of Representatives that would require that community pharmacies in medically underserved areas (MUAs), medically underserved populations (MUPs) and health professional shortage areas (HPSAs) be allowed to participate in Medicare Part D preferred pharmacy networks if they are willing to accept the contract terms and conditions of current preferred providers.

Lawmakers who introduced the bill said it will give seniors more choice, allow community pharmacies to compete and preserve access to medical services in underserved areas.

In the video, community pharmacist Steve Giroux of Middleport Family Health Center in Middleport, N.Y., said of preferred pharmacy networks, “It presents a challenge because we’re in a small, rural community in western New York and patients rely on our services. By excluding us from the network, it forces them to travel some distance to be able to obtain service, if at all.”

But consumers in urban areas who fill their prescriptions at independent pharmacies also are affected, noted Beverly Schaefer of Kattermans Sand Point Pharmacy in Seattle. “Preferred pharmacy drug plans are kind of problematic in an urban area as well as rural areas because in an urban area we don’t have a lot of big-box stores that are nearby. Patients are having to travel many, many miles to get prescriptions that they would have been able to get in their local neighborhood [pharmacy].”