Louisiana patients could soon get more details about what happens at the pharmacy counter and whether they’ve gotten the most affordable medication for an ailment.
Lawmakers, during the regular legislative session, passed a package of bills requiring more transparency about the complex structures that determine how much someone pays for a prescription drug. Gov. John Bel Edwards recently signed the proposal into law.
“I hope what it means for the consumers is lower prescription pricing, I hope. I also hope it’s more flexibility between (the) physician and the patient,” said Republican Sen. Fred Mills, a St. Martin Parish pharmacist who sponsored or co-sponsored most of the new laws.
The measures target pharmacy benefit managers, firms hired by insurance companies and employers to administer prescription drug programs and to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. Â
Among the changes, one bill will outlaw pharmacy benefit managers from using so-called gag rules that bar pharmacists from telling patients when they could save money by paying cash instead of using insurance or if there’s a more affordable alternative medication.
Mills’ legislation will also require the state insurance department to post more information online about pharmacy benefit manager agreements in Louisiana.
The pharmaceutical companies and insurers will have to issue annual reports on rebates they received and whether they were passed on to the health benefit plan or insurance company. Those  changes take effect Jan. 1, 2020.
