NACDS’ Sara Roszak on FOX News’ Special Report with Bret Baier discussing COVID antivirals
On Thursday night, NACDS Senior Vice President of Health and Wellness Strategy and Policy Sara Roszak appeared on FOX News’ Special Report with Bret Baier — emphasizing the need to address policies that splinter the patient journey for COVID antivirals and that hinder ready access to these medications within days of the symptoms’ onset.
NACDS continues to urge the Biden Administration to make at least two changes to the rollout of the COVID antiviral drugs — in order to help maximize access, convenience and equity for patients:
- The emergency use authorization for the antivirals should be updated to reflect the 9th amendment to the PREP Act declaration – thus allowing pharmacists to assess a patient, prescribe an antiviral if appropriate, and initiate this treatment.
- Pandemics require nimble solutions, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services should determine a method to help ensure payers reimburse pharmacies adequately for the time-intensive nature and unique expenses associated with dispensing these antivirals.
CBS News recently quoted NACDS on these critical issues.
- “The reimbursement issue is very much a real problem that we are hearing from our members and quite frankly, this is a situation that will only get worse as antivirals are available in greater quantities.”
- “[Aligning with pharmacists’ authority under the PREP Act] would allow the patient to come to the pharmacy, have the clinical assessment done, have their tests done at the pharmacy, and then be able to come back to that same location and pick up their medication if they are indicated to receive it. What we’ve seen here is the splintering of the patient journey, which can increase frustration and delay medications that need to be put to work quickly in order to be effective.”
NBC News recently quoted NACDS on these critical issues.
- “There’s currently a gap between what the PREP Act allows pharmacists to do and then what the emergency use authorization [of the antivirals] does not allow them to do, essentially splintering the patient journey. We believe that that increases frustration and delays the use of medication that needs to be given to patients really quickly to be effective.”
