Crowded Commissioners Court Hears Concerns over Changes to Yoakum County Prescription and Health Insurance Issues

by Eric

 

Things were hopping in Commissioners Court on Monday, October 24, as a packed house was present to listen to concerns over changes to Yoakum County prescription and health insurance.

County Judge Jim Barron called the meeting to order where he introduced Denver City pharmacist David Fung, owner of DC Pharmacy.

Basically Fung and Tony Duran, owner of Liberty Drug, were present to voice their concerns over a policy in place with CVS/Caremark that states county employees, which includes West Texas Medical Center, Yoakum County Hospital, as well as county employees, who are on long term maintenance medications must use a CVS pharmacy and/or Caremark mail in pharmacy. Both Fung and Duran wanted this policy to be removed.

Both Fung and Duran maintained this policy in the long run could ruin local pharmacies and drive them out of business. Fung presented several points to back his argument.

“I receive calls from many people who tell me they are still waiting on a prescription from a mail order pharmacy to come in or tell me their orders have been shorted,” Fung said. “They are basically asking me what I can do to help them out. In the meantime their prescriptions have run out and they have nothing to take.”

Fung also said there are many false economies when patients are told of the savings to a three month supply when ordered through these mail order pharmacies.

A hand out presented to those in court stated studies have shown that health plans that encourage the use of mail order by subsidizing patient co-payments for drugs purchased from PBM-owned mail order dispensing actually pay more for drugs.

It further states, “Mail order pharmacies can appear to patients to be cheaper overall than retail pharmacies. That’s usually because PBMs will impose arbitrary, penalty co-pays; that is requiring three co-pays at retail for a 90-day supply of medicine vs two co-pays for the same supply via mail. In other cases, PBMs prohibit community based pharmacies from filling prescriptions for medications taken regularly, known as maintenance medications. Their windfall profits depend on having exclusive rights to fill patient prescriptions without competition from community pharmacies or other mail services.”

Fung handed a petition to Judge Barron that contained several pages of signatures that stated, “We, the employees of West Texas Medical Center, Yoakum County hospital, and county employees would like to petition the court that the policy in place with CVS/Caremark that states the employees who are on long term maintenance medication must use a CVS pharmacy and/or Caremark mail in pharmacy be removed. This is in the best interest of the employees and their families. We are employed in a rural area and do not have a CVS in our small town and using the mail order is not a benefit to us.”

Duran echoed Fung’s thoughts. “I’m not up here to say anything different than what David has already told you,” Duran said. “We are both small business in a small community trying to compete with a mammoth gigantic corporation who are not exactly what they are portraying.”

On the other side of the argument were representative of Texas Association of Counties (TAC) who currently handles all of the counties health and prescription drug policies. Brian Naiser and Kathy Davenport had a slide show presentation to give their side of the argument.

They both assured both Fung and Duran they were not here to drive the local pharmacies out of business. They also showed how a large amount of money had been placed back into Yoakum County Hospital through savings on prescription drugs.

After questions were asked Judge Barron made the following statement, “Each year we need to look at our budget and look at what’s best for our employees and for their families. We are concerned for our local pharmacies and do not want any of this in any way affect their business. We do the best we can for our employees.”

Ross Shamburger, who formerly handled all the counties health and drug prescriptions programs, was also in attendance. He reported that $1,267,000 had been returned to the county since 2007 through prescription medicine while using TAC. Shamburger owns an Insurance Agency in Lubbock.

After the nearly two hour presentation the court took a five minute recess before addressing the remainder of their agenda.

The court tabled three things on their agenda until their next meeting. This included approving a 2017 Resolution for the Indigent Defense Grant Program, consider and take appropriate action on server replacement project, and consider and take appropriate action on Barracuda web security.

In their next action Judge Barron read a resolution for Texans Feeding Texans. It was unanimously approved.

James Edgar, a representative of AeroCare services, was present to go over the renewal of the flight for life services provided for Yoakum County. After he presented some basic facts over the number of flights that had been made into Yoakum County the Commissioners unanimously approved the new yearly contract for a price of $31,248. Every Yoakum County resident is covered by these services.

There were no requests for disposal of county equipment, no line item transfers, and no Soil Conservation request.

Commissioners Woody Lindsey and Ray Marion had no updates on the new Denver City Community Building.

In auditing and settling all accounts against the County the court approved to pay all bills and direct their payments.

Commissioners Woody Lindsey, Ray Marion, Ty Earl Powell, and Tim Addison along with Judge Jim Barron were all in attendance.

The next meeting will be held on Monday, October 31, in the County Courthouse starting at 10 am.

 

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