URGENT: Tricare patients to lose access to their community pharmacies
The situation
Tricare, which provides medical benefits to millions of servicemen and -women, has a new contract with Express Scripts, the giant pharmacy benefits manager and mail-order pharmacy.
This contract means 15,000 community pharmacies will be forced out of the Express Scripts network. Why? Express Scripts is cutting the amount it will reimburse pharmacies for medications — in many cases it will pay less than what the pharmacy itself pays for the drugs.
Read that again: 15,000 community pharmacies will no longer be able to accept Tricare. Patients will be forced to leave the neighborhood pharmacists they’ve come to know and trust.
It gets worse.
- Patients will have to switch all their prescriptions — that means contacting each of their doctors and arranging the transfer. (If there’s a hiccup? More phone calls and waiting on hold.)
- Need help from Express Scripts? Call 1-800-whatever — “Your call will be answered in the order it was received.”
- Mistake in your meds? With mail order, replacements will arrive in a few days … or longer. Until then, good luck.
- Although the new contract doesn’t take effect until January 2023, Express Scripts is telling patients they have to switch by October 24.
- Patients whose prescriptions renew automatically, or those in the middle of a 90-day supply, have to scramble to avoid interruption or confusion.
What you can do
1. Sign the petition
https://www.change.org/p/express-scripts-contract-hurts-tricare-patients-dha-act-now
2. Contact your member of Congress
Two members of Congress — Buddy Carter of Georgia in the House (himself a pharmacist) and Tom Cotton of Arkansas in the Senate — have written a letter to the Department of Defense demanding answers from the DoD.
3. Please tell your representatives and senators in Washington to sign that letter. The more signatures, the more clout the letter will have! Simply say, “Please sign the Carter/Cotton letter.”
4. Only Congress can stop Express Scripts from cutting off thousands of servicemembers from their neighborhood pharmacies!
Don’t know how to reach them? No worries! Click here to look them up on OpenStates.org.
