S. 2405: Strengthening Pharmacy Access for Seniors Act

This bill prohibits prescription drug plan (PDP) sponsors and pharmacy benefit managers from restricting access to any covered drug under the Medicare prescription drug benefit to a subset of their network pharmacies except for limited access drugs. Limited access drugs are those for which the Food and Drug Administration has restricted distribution to certain facilities or physicians or for which dispensing requires extraordinary special handling, coordination, or education that a network pharmacy cannot meet.

PDP sponsors must annually report to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (1) a list of drugs that the PDP sponsor designated as limited access drugs, (2) the reasons for the designations, (3) information about relevant requirements for pharmacies with respect to these drugs, and (4) the types of pharmacies dispensing these drugs.

Written by the Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.