SB236 Alabama 2020 Session

Summary

Primary Sponsor

Tom Butler Senator

Republican

Session

Regular Session 2020

Title

Pharmacy Benefits Managers, steering patients to affiliated pharmacies prohibited, mining patient data prohibited, requiring mail order pharmacies by health insurance plan prohibited, Act 2019-457, 2019 Reg. Sess., sections amended and renumbered; Secs. 27-45A-6 to 27-45A-10, inclusive, 27-45A-12 added; Secs. 27-45A-3, 27-45A-4, 27-45A-5 am'd.

Description

Under existing law, pharmacy benefits managers must be licensed by the Department of Insurance. Pharmacy benefits managers provide claims processing services or prescription drug and other pharmacist services, or both, to health benefit plans.

This bill would prohibit pharmacy benefits managers and health benefit plans from transferring and sharing certain patient information with certain affiliates of the pharmacy benefits manager for purposes of steering or referring a patient toward using a specific pharmacy.

This bill would prohibit a health benefit plan from requiring an insured to obtain pharmacist services, including prescription drugs, exclusively from a mail-order pharmaceutical distributor or affiliated pharmacy.

This bill would prohibit a pharmacy benefits manager from limiting certain powers of a pharmacist to provide pharmacist services to insureds, from steering insured patients toward an affiliated pharmacy, and from sharing patient data with an affiliated pharmacy.

This bill would require pharmacy benefits managers to report annually to clients information on pharmacy manufacturer rebates they received.

This bill would also provide conforming changes to definitions and would provide civil penalties for violations.

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Subjects

Pharmacies and Pharmacists