ACCP Advocates for Clinical Pharmacists in Outreach to Biden Administration

January 27, 2023

ACCP Advocates for Clinical Pharmacists in Outreach to Biden Administration
Urges Coverage of Pharmacists’ Comprehensive Clinical Services in President’s Budget Request

Washington, DC -- ACCP is calling on the Biden Administration to include coverage for team-based comprehensive medication optimization services delivered by clinical pharmacists, in its Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request to Congress.

Background to Medicare Medication Coverage

The Medicare Part D drug benefit successfully expanded Medicare to include prescription medications in the early 2000s.  However, Medicare has never had a meaningful patient-care benefit to ensure that expensive and complex prescription medications provide maximum value and contribute to optimal patient outcomes.

We believe the time for that to change is now.  ACCP supports the Biden Administration’s efforts to lower the cost of prescription drugs to patients, and it is our belief that medication optimization is just as important -- if not more important -- than medication affordability. Integrating clinical pharmacists into Medicare patient-centered teams could achieve this critically important goal at a national level.

ACCP’s Recommendation

Medication misuse is estimated to account for at least $528.4 billion in unnecessary health care spending annually. Comprehensive Medication Management (CMM) has been shown to improve outcomes, increase patient satisfaction, alleviate physician “burnout,” and save money.  

CMM is a well-established standard of care in our nation’s leading private sector health systems, including Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente, Mayo Clinic, and Johns Hopkins.  The Veterans Health Care system has systematically integrated clinical pharmacist specialists into Patient-Aligned Care Teams (PACT) to significantly improve patient outcomes for a range of chronic conditions.

CMM provided by clinical pharmacists, in close collaboration with physicians, is a critically important step to help ensure that medication therapy is fully optimized, contributing to better care, lower costs, improved outcomes, and enhanced equity. 

Click here to read ACCP’s budget request letter to the Biden Administration.