Neronha backing legislation to keep physicians in Rhode Island

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WLNE) — Attorney General Peter Neronha sounded alarm bells on the state of healthcare in Rhode Island, laying out a series of new plans he said will help fix the problem.

“We need to raise our reimbursement rates. and look, this is not something that we need to study,” Neronha said. “We know this. This is not going to take two, three, four years to figure it out.”

Neronha said that the state was in a state of “spectacular failure” when it came to healthcare coverage.

In order to fix it, the attorney general threw his support behind three bills in the general assembly.

One that would increase the state’s Medicaid reimbursements in order to attract and keep more doctors, who would get higher pay in Massachusetts and Connecticut because of those reimbursement levels.

A study showed Rhode Island’s doctors were overworked and that there weren’t enough in the state, causing many patients to leave emergency departments without being seen.

Many nursing homes have also been left in economic distress.

“This finding should be terrifying to everyone in Rhode Island who plans to find themselves aging here,” Special Assistant Attorney General Dorothea Lindquist said. “If this trend continues for even a little while longer, there simply won’t be facilities available to care for us, for our loved ones, when we need it.”

The attorney general said he was also backing legislation that would make it easier to put financially unstable hospitals into receivership, and that he and his team filed suit against three pharmacy benefit managers yesterday, including CVS, to try to help lower prescription drug prices in the state.

CVS released the following statement on Neronha’s lawsuit:

It’s surprising and unfortunate that Rhode Island’s attorney general would use biased and incorrect assertions about our industry to needlessly attack a hometown company. CVS Health contributes nearly $3 billion of positive economic activity in Rhode Island each year, and we employ more than 7,000 colleagues across the state.

As America’s leading pharmacy benefit manager, CVS Caremark puts medicine within reach by lowering costs and broadening access. Just last year alone, we saved Americans more than $40 billion on their prescription drug costs. Our members pay, on average, less than $8 per 30-day supply of medication.

The attorney general’s rhetoric about protecting independent pharmacies is inaccurate and misleading. There are more independent pharmacies operating in Rhode Island today than there were six years ago. Further, CVS Caremark reimburses independent pharmacies at higher rates than it does CVS Pharmacy.

With more than 9,000 CVS Pharmacy locations across the country and 62 in Rhode Island alone, we are the cornerstone for care in these communities.

We look forward to productive discussions with all stakeholders to help improve the understanding of our value and not be derailed by misinformation. Our collection of businesses uniquely works together to deliver simply better health. Additional regulation to limit how PBMs operate will likely increase prescription drug costs for Rhode Islanders and serve as a handout to Big Pharma.