There will never be a time when this proposal makes sense-but especially now, as COVID-19 continues to ravage our communities and disproportionately affect communities of color. In the Governor’s budget proposal, he highlighted the importance of investing in food and housing security programs-which would be almost impossible for us to continue without the 340B program.Īlthough the Governor has allocated some funding in his budget for safety net providers, in lieu of keeping the benefit intact, it is simply nowhere near enough to cover the deficit and the impact on services as a result of this carve out. With this carve out, access to prescriptions, as well as other critical healthcare and supportive services we provide our community, will be at significant risk. These expanded services are critical to patients living with HIV/AIDS as well as the goal of the Ending the Epidemic in NYS.Īs a Federally Qualified Community Health Center, we also receive discounts on prescriptions that allows us to provide these same expanded services to people and families with low-income or living in poverty. This benefit allows us to provide wrap around services that engage and retain people into care, support medication adherence and ultimately reduce viral load and thereby, transmission of infection. The Governor himself just recently highlighted that 1.6 million New Yorkers are now insured under Medicaid- it is these very people who will be hurt by the carve out of the pharmacy benefit which will eliminate the discounts from the safety net providers resulting in cutting services to those who need it most.Īs a Ryan White clinic participating in the 340B drug discount program, we provide services to low income individuals living with HIV. This move will be financially devastating to safety net providers like Trillium Health, and cause significant disruption in services and further confusion for patients all in the midst of navigating and responding to COVID-19. While we are generally supportive of the intention of the waiver, and the goals of DSRIP, we are extremely concerned about the pharmacy carve out and do not agree with this recommendation. Trillium Health is dually designated as a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) Look-Alike and a Ryan White HIV clinic, located in the heart of downtown Rochester, NY, and we have served our community for more than 30 years. My name is Andrea DeMeo, and I am the President and CEO of Trillium Health. Thank you for the invitation to provide comments today regarding the three-year extension of the Section 1115 Medicaid Redesign Team (“MRT”) waiver.
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