Hospital outpatient pharmacies win higher medicare payments for 2011: but they are not yet recovering overhead costs for expensive drugs.

摘要

There is both good news and bad news this month from Medicare on reimbursement for hospital outpatient pharmacies in calendar year 2011.The good news: payments to the pharmacies are up over calendar year 2010, although just slightly.The bad news: systemic problems in the Medicare reimbursement formula remain; some pharmacies will continue to be woefully underpaid for expensive drugs that require special handling. More broadly, pharmacies that are spending considerable sums to meet requirements such as the U.S. Pharmacopeia's Chapter 797 ("Standards on Compounding Sterile Preparations") are not able to recoup those capital costs through Medicare reimbursement.