Independent pharmacies hammered by FSA 90-percent rule Jan 15, 2010 By: Fred Gebhart, Contributing Editor Drug Topics
by admin on Jan.21, 2010, under Healthcare
Flexible spending accounts, or FSAs, are near to Frank McCree’s heart — and heartburn. As director of outpatient services for Carolinas Health System in Charlotte, North Carolina, McCree oversaw the acceptance of FSA purchases for seven retail pharmacies and a mail-order pharmacy serving 40,000 employees and their dependents. And he took the heat when employee FSA debit-card purchases were denied at the system’s own mail-order pharmacy. “We worked with the vendor that set up the FSA program at our retail pharmacies, so we assumed that everything would be fine with the mail-order program,” McCree told Drug Topics. “Instead, our employee transactions were being denied. That’s a recipe for heartburn.”
McCree has plenty of company. Independent and small chain pharmacies nationwide are seeing FSA card transactions declined. Long-time patients are being pushed out of independent pharmacies and into chains. click here
