Increase Access To Pharmacy Services

The bill:

• Authorizes a pharmacist to delegate to a pharmacy technician any task within the practice of pharmacy for which the pharmacy technician has been specifically trained, except for patient counseling, drug regimen review, and clinical conflict resolution Amends practice as a pharmacy technician to include performing point-of-care testing and patient care technical tasks as specifically trained for and delegated by a supervising pharmacist ;
• Requires that if 3 or more pharmacy technicians are on duty, the majority must be fully certified;
• Removes Changes the statutory supervision ratio for pharmacists to include supervising up to eight pharmacy technicians when the pharmacy, other than a pharmacy located in a hospital, is not a public-facing pharmacy and is acting as an agent of an originating pharmacy to fill or refill a prescription; and
• Authorizes reimbursement under the medical assistance program for dispensing or administering vaccines to children under 19 years of age. To be eligible to receive reimbursement, the pharmacy or pharmacist must be enrolled in good standing with the vaccines for children program administered by the department of public health and environment (department). Until the department determines a framework for participation by pharmacies or pharmacists, the department is not required to enroll pharmacies receiving reimbursement for the administration of vaccines through the medical assistance program as vaccines for children providers.

(Note: Italicized words indicate new material added to the original summary; dashes through words indicate deletions from the original summary.)

(Note: This summary applies to the reengrossed version of this bill as introduced in the second house.)