Posted At Michigan Live
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Michigan pharmacists can sell and dispense prescription drugs by mail under legislation signed Tuesday by Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
The three-bill package is intended to help pharmacists compete with large mail-order prescription drug companies.
Before the law passed that allows in-state pharmacies to fill prescriptions received by mail, pharmacists faced a $5,000 fine each time they used mail-order services.
Local pharmacies say the ban on filling prescriptions received by mail has hurt them in recent years as more health care plans began requiring or giving incentives to their customers who get their drugs from mail-order companies to keep down costs.
The new law also allows the state's Medicaid program to use in-state pharmacies to supply medicine to poor residents in the program. The program, which helped cover 1.4 million low-income residents in the 2004 fiscal year, has used out-of-state pharmacies because of the mail restriction on those in Michigan.
One of the new laws in the package allows in-state pharmacies to participate in centralized filling, where mail-order and chain pharmacies use machines to fill thousands of prescriptions per day from a warehouse. The process is becoming more popular as the volume of prescriptions soars, and mail-order companies can more efficiently fill large numbers of prescriptions.
"It is a win-win for everyone involved," said Rep. Scott Hummel, a DeWitt Republican who introduced the centralized filling bill. "Those on medication will continue to work with pharmacists they know and trust while saving everyone time and money."
