Florida’s health plans are committed to Florida patients.
To ensure accountability and transparency, health plans fulfill strict disclosure requirements and are regulated by state and federal law. We believe in transparency across the entire supply chain, including in prescription drug prices.
Florida’s health plans play a unique role in controlling health care costs for employers, taxpayers and patients. Utilizing current, effective business practices, Florida’s health plans:
- Preserve patient safety,
- Incentivize quality through managed networks,
- Fight fraud, waste and abuse, and
- Control costs of services and pharmaceuticals.
Florida is already home to two of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid and Medicare Fraud Strike Force zones, Miami and Tampa/Orlando, and health plan’s management practices are part and parcel to plans’ ability to fight fraud, waste and abuse.
Rising Drug Prices
In today’s market, there is no accountability or transparency over how the pharmaceutical industry raises drug prices. Their unnecessary, unjustified and unrelenting price increases year over year on prescription medications should be subject to annual reports that disclose and justify the price increases.
But, to distract from the larger conversation on how to address the ever-increasing cost of pharmaceuticals and lack of transparency surrounding price increases, the pharmaceutical industry is using the need to protect independent pharmacies as a smokescreen to remove any barriers to charge unlimited prices for their drugs.
Independent pharmacies provide a valuable service to patients and partner with health plans in local communities, but limiting a plan’s ability to rely on national accreditation standards when contracting with pharmacies invites fraud and abuse into the system, does not take quality into account and undermines value-based contracting.
We believe it is imperative to have transparency in drug pricing at all levels to rein in costs – including pricing set by manufacturers and advance notice to the state when increasing the cost of drugs.
Policies that increase transparency and accountability, like those championed by Governor Ron DeSantis, throughout the supply chain are necessary to protect consumers and ensure access to high-quality, affordable pharmaceuticals.
Damaging health plan’s management practices will only increase costs to Florida taxpayers, businesses and patients through premium increases to pay for price hikes by drug manufacturers.