The Italian-American Pharmacists Society of the State of New York
Meeting Minutes
THURSDAY, May 13 th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
CE Presentation: Managing Multiple Medications in Patients with PAH by speaker Roxana Sulica, M.D.
Secretary Report: Minutes were approved and will be posted on website.
Treasurer Report: Account is the black and approved by chairman of board.
Committee Reports :
*PSSNY Report: Joe Navarra pointed that the OMIG reform bill which has a main directive to prevent withholding of non-fraud cases so providers have due process. With audit they can get money out before . Charles, Joe and others had a conference call with DOH and medicaid inspector general Jim Sheehan regarding NPI numbers required by pharmacist transmitting prescriptions. They asked what the definition of the dispensing pharmacist is since the pharmacist is not the one that may transmit the claim. This still needs to be further defined.
Another point is that they wanted to know if we bill first before dispensing-joe stated that we have to bill first then dispense. the governors office is claiming that we bill before we have prod in stock. Other bill are there that will allow pharmacy to own miniclinics-the bigger chains are pushing for it. Independ owners need to address this bill-whether we want to support it or not. Joe will keep us updated as it progress. Medical marijjuna bill -In ca anyone can register and open a shop but in ny they want more restricitons, the pharmacy, md has to register for the shop. The md will determine the diagnosis and patient can get 2.5 gm at a time, it can be sold in 1/2 gm increments and set prices. To sell or distribute over 2.5 gm is a federal offense so a letter from the federal government will be needed to have on file to avoid any prosecution. This is an Obama administration deal-so the it's life will be as long as his term lasts. Joe reported that the AWP law suit has been dropped.
**PSSNY Convention is July 7th -10th, 2011 at Fort William Henry in Lake George, NY.***
The theme is Medieval Madness Conference. Change of schedule will take place so look out for the emails. Joe asked for $500 donation for this convention from IPS.
Legislative Report by Charles Catalano who will be attending the fundraiser for the speaker Shelly Silver the next day. It is open to the public to come to this event. Speaker Silver is the most important man in NY State.
Medicare Report: Charlie reported that for long term care CMS is looking for 7 day fill/dispense on all medications, but they want the pharmacies to bill once every 4 weeks. This will cause chaos for pharmacies. They feel that this short term cycle fill will save money.
Joe stated that medicaid incentive for eRx went into effect May 1st. The incentive is not eligible unless the md transmits his NPI # with the erx. If the NPI # is not transmitted w/erx-in case of an audit, medicaid can take the money back. Opus has ability to put an origination code if NPI # is not transmitted from Md file.
Dinner Dance Journal Report by Roger Paganelli: Gross profit from the dinner dance $22,770 -these are pledges and checks received. There is $5,775 that is still outstanding. The cost of journal is $6,500 so the net profit from journal is approximately $10,500 plus $5,775 (still pending). Roger apologized to Anthony and Linda for the error of not placing their ads in the journal.
State board of Pharmacy Report: Dan Molino reported that the co-mingling bill will be further clarified soon. In NY, 600,00 to 1 million additional people were immunized due the pharmacist immunization bill. Black and Hispanic communities benefited from this bill. It is hope that the bill will further expand to other vaccines. NABP convention will be in Cooperstown in November where the guest speaker will be Goose Gossage. Dan has more info on this event. A question proposed by a software vendor to the board of pharmacy was what changes if any can a pharmacy biller make on electronic script without direct involvement of a pharmacist. Dan stated that the software program is not allowed to "automatically" do anything with eRx. He strongly urged caution with software vendors being allowed to make "automatic" changes.
New Business: Change in venue for the 2011 dinner dance. The new location will be the Marina Del Rey on March 19, 2011. This year's Christmas Party will be moved to Leonard's of Great Neck. Stephanie Vitale is working on this event.
Ray Macioci's father passed away 2 days ago and the family preferred donation to a veteran's organization. Dan motioned IPS to donate a determined amount to a designated charity.
**Change in Venue** Next meeting will be held at Trattoria L'Incontro in Astoria on June 10, 2010 at 8 pm. Please respond electronically ASAP due to limited seats.
Prepared by: Daksha P. Fata