In the full video interview with Pharma Commerce, Jenni Zilka, SVP, community & specialty pharmacy and president, Good Neighbor Pharmacy, noted that pharmacy deserts are communities without access to pharmacies, hindering residents’ ability to fill prescriptions and access healthcare services. These areas are often also healthcare deserts. Definitions vary by location: urban areas lack pharmacies within a mile, suburban areas within two miles, and rural areas within ten miles. Approximately 35 million people live in pharmacy deserts, making this issue pressing. Factors contributing to their rise include reimbursement pressures, decreased foot traffic post-COVID, and the inability of pharmacies to bill for services beyond prescription filling. Independent pharmacies, often serving underserved communities with a majority of government-paid patients, are particularly affected. Zilka also alluded to legislation that is helping to improve patient access.
A transcript of Zilka’s conversation with PC can be found below.
PC: How can pending legislation improve patient access, and how are these helping with recognizing pharmacists as healthcare providers?
Zilka: Right now, we have some challenges around expanding the scope of practice for our pharmacies, along with the reimbursement pressure. The good news is there’s a fair amount of legislation that’s currently on the table. We’re in an election year, so we probably won’t see it go through this year, but it definitely has bipartisan support. We expect it to persist and continue into 2025, and hopefully pass. There is the Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act that is in Congress, which would ensure that Medicare beneficiaries—so these patients—have prompt access to essential services for vaccinations, testing, and treatment of common infectious diseases.
The way that they would do that is establishing Part B reimbursement for pharmacists to deliver these essential services. That’s really important, and we are continuing to advocate, along with the rest of the profession, for that sort of access, so they can not only reach patients, but they can do more to care for them going forward. And candidly, a lot of these services, they’re already doing it. They’re already vaccinating, they’re already testing. This just allows them a pathway to be reimbursed, which will help with some of the reimbursement pressure that they’re facing. And there is, of course, legislation currently within both at the state and federal level, around reimbursement reform and ensuring that pharmacies are adequately reimbursed for the services that they provide. I think continuing to advocate and enable our pharmacies to be able to tell their story and continue down that path is really important at a high level.