the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is revamping the payment rates for medications currently covered under Part B of the payment schedule. APhA will be providing comments on a proposed pharmacy supplying fee and is seeking pharmacist input on the adequacy of the $10 rate proposed by the federal agency.

In the Medicare Modernization Act that was passed last December, Congress instructed CMS to reduce the reimbursement rate for most Part B drugs.

The new payment rate was to cover only the cost of acquiring the product, not the costs associated with physician administering or pharmacy supplying of the product.

To compensate for the reduction in reimbursement, Congress instructed CMS to pay pharmacies a separate pharmacy supplying fee for some of these drugs—specifically immunosuppressive drugs, oral anticancer agents, and antinausea drugs—to cover their costs for handling and dispensing these products.

CMS defied Congress when it released an interim final rule earlier this year. In it, CMS decided not to pay pharmacies a separate supplying fee, claiming that no data were available suggesting that the lowered reimbursement rates for these products was too low to cover the cost of supplying these drugs. Instead, CMS stated that it was "bundling" the supplying fee with the reimbursement for the drug product.