NCPA has urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to prohibit provider cobranding on Part D explanatory materials such as enrollment letters/forms, pharmacy directories, and benefit summaries. CMS previously had announced that it would prohibit cobranding on member identification cards starting Jan. 1, 2007.
In comments filed recently with CMS on proposed Medicare Marketing Guidelines, NCPA noted that cobranding of cards and explanatory materials “implies to beneficiaries that they must go to those cobranded entities to obtain Part D coverage.” In addition, NCPA recommended that a note be added to the marketing scripts section “to prohibit any language that steers beneficiaries inappropriately to preferred pharmacies by implying that prescription drug benefits are deficient or not available through non-preferred pharmacies.”
NCPA has testified before congressional committees on the problem co-branding causes in misleading beneficiaries and is also actively supporting legislation that would ban cobranding of Medicare Part D materials.
Read all of NCPA’s comments here.