Senate Health Reform Bill Contains Wins, Opportunities for Pharmacy

11/20/2009

The Senate is poised to debate a recently introduced health care reform bill containing several measures championed by ASHP.

The just-released Senate health care reform bill is the product of two Senate committees-- Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The legislation creates:

• A patient safety research center that would award grants for pharmacist-provided medication therapy management services to chronically-ill patients.
• Community health teams, to provide transition care, including medication reconciliation and discharge planning with medication therapy management services under the medical home model.
• A national health care workforce commission to gather and disseminate information about on health workforce supply, education and training capacity, look to integrate health care training.

The bill also contains several other potential areas of opportunity for pharmacists in the future, including prevention of hospital readmissions using medication management and counseling.

The bill does not contain a loan forgiveness program similar to the one found in the House bill. It also does not include funding for second-year specialty residency programs. ASHP is working with the Senate to secure a floor amendment to address that issue.

ASHP actively advocated for pharmacists and the important contributions they make as part of the health care team. The Society urged policymakers to incorporate pharmacists’ services into the medical home model and to include pharmacists and clinical pharmacists in definitions of the health care workforce and health professionals that are part of the bill. ASHP also took a lead role in the work of the coalition, Leadership for Medication Management, which lobbied lawmakers to include the medication therapy management grant provision in the bill.