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Sponsors
No co-sponsors yet.
History
- Referred to insurance
- Referred to insurance
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the insurance law, in relation to prohibiting drug switching payments
Purpose
Prohibits contracts that include any incentive plan that includes specific payment to a health care provider as an inducement to change a prescription
Summary of provisions
Section 1 amends 3217-b of the insurance law by adding a new subsection (i).
Section 2 states that this act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have become law.
Justification
Many employers and health plans have adopted incentive-based formularies in an attempt to control prescription drug costs. For several years, doctors have been accepting these bonuses or performance incentives from health plans for boosting their patients' use of generic drugs. Although increasing the use of generics can save health plans a great deal of money, this practice may compromise the patient's health. Offering physicians incentives to switch their patients' prescription is unethical as it may influence their judgment on what should purely be a medical decision. Under no circumstances should an HMO ask a physician to place their own financial interests above the welfare of their patients.
The incentive program that has drawn the most scrutiny is one initiated last year by Blue Care Network. Under the three-month program, primary care physicians were asked to consider switching patients from a brand-name drug and received $100 for each plan member who filled a generic cholesterol-lowering statin prescription. In an effort to assist doctors, the HMO mailed them a list of members who were taking brand-name statins. Blue Care Network spent $2 million in payments to doctors in compliance. In response to this program, the American Medical Association posted a document on its website challenging the use of such programs, while states such as Michigan and Massachusetts conducted hearings and introduced legislation to regulate such programs.
Legislative history
2007/2008 - S.7938 Remained in the Senate Committee on Insurance
Fiscal implications
None.
Effective date
This act shall take effect on the ninetieth day after it shall have become a law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.