Originally published by our sister publication Pharmacy Practice News
In 2023, representatives of the Hematology/Oncology Pharmacists Association (HOPA) went to Capitol Hill twice (once virtually, once in person) to promote the interests of their specialty and patients to legislators and their staff members.
This intensified work—an increase from the single annual visits that HOPA organized in prior years—comes as HOPA ramps up its lobbying efforts, speakers noted during an advocacy update session at the HOPA Annual Conference 2024, in Tampa, Fla.
The speakers noted that HOPA continues to promote billing parity between oral and IV chemotherapy medications. The society also is taking a leadership role in addressing cancer drug shortages and in developing legislation that would pay for clinical pharmacists to be integrated into patient care teams.
Kathleen Sellick, MBA, a HOPA caregiver advocate who retired after her last position as president and CEO of Rady Children’s Hospital–San Diego, offered a personal perspective on the value pharmacists bring to patient care. “The pharmacists were the strongest members of our team,” said Ms. Sellick, who worked closely with pharmacists as her father recovered from non-Hodgkin lymphoma and as her mother and husband both “fought hard battles” against metastatic lung and brain cancers, respectively.
Calling it “unconscionable” that pharmacists often do not have equal provider status as other healthcare professionals, Ms. Sellick endorsed an ongoing HOPA-led legislative effort that would require the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to fund a demonstration project to determine whether adding clinical pharmacists to patient care teams improves health outcomes while lowering healthcare costs.
HOPA’s partners in the current effort include the American Association of Psychiatric Pharmacists, the Society of Infectious Diseases Pharmacists and the American College of Clinical Pharmacy.
This HOPA-led initiative is distinct from other efforts to improve provider status among pharmacists, such as the Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (ECAPS). The act would elevate community pharmacists to the first point of contact when patients are being treated for illnesses such as the flu or COVID-19. ECAPS was introduced in the current Congress and continues to gain sponsors, session speakers noted, although it has not been signed into law.
“We congratulate everyone in the pharmacy community who’s been pushing the ECAPS bill, because they’ve made great progress,” said Brooke Boring, MPH, CPhT, HOPA’s senior manager of health policy and advocacy.
HOPA supports ECAPS but is focusing on carving out new visibility for clinical pharmacists, Ms. Boring stressed.
As for HOPA’s efforts to address chronic shortages in cancer drugs, the group has been taking a strength-in-numbers approach, Mr. Scott noted. In October 2023, HOPA convened a group of more than 20 pharmacist and patient advocacy groups that called for better transparency when drugs are in shortage, as well as new incentives for manufacturers to increase supply.
HOPA plans to continue this work in 2024, Mr. Scott and Ms. Boring both noted.
The sources reported no relevant financial disclosures.