CMS Wants Two Years to Roll Out Smoothing Program Enrollment at the Pharmacy for Patients, but the PIRC Coalition, Formed by CLL Society, Came Together to Highlight How CMS’ IRA Vendors Could Implement It on ‘Day One’

The Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) have argued for months that the more convenient enrollment option for patients in the ‘smoothing’ program would not feasible for up to two years. This program is meant to give patients a way to spread their drug costs over a plan year, rather than be hit by a high cost copay at the pharmacy counter.  The PIRC Coalition and CLL Society have been saying enrollment at the pharmacy counter when the patient picks up the drug is the best way to ease patient financial and logistics burdens.  When CMS proposed details of their vendor hiring, including the data the vendor would manage, we argued the same data and analytics and technical expertise could be used to enroll patients in the smoothing program right at the pharmacy from the start of the program.

Download the letter here.