Fast-Growing Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition (SCPC) Announces New Board Chairman, Executive Leadership Team, Board Members

DATE: November 29, 2016

New Chair Attributes SCPC Growth to Succession of Legislative and Regulatory Achievements

Washington, DC – Phil Fogg, Jr., Chairman and CEO of Milwaukie, OR-based Marquis Companies and Consonus Health Care — currently serving on the Board of the American Health Care Association (AHCA) — will serve as the new Chairman of the Senior Care Pharmacy Coalition (SCPC), the Washington D.C.-based advocacy organization announced today. SCPC is the only national organization dedicated exclusively to the specific legislative and regulatory interests of America’s increasingly important long term care (LTC) pharmacy sector and the elderly patients served in skilled nursing and residential care settings across the nation.

Serving on the new SCPC Executive Committee are Vice-Chairman Fred Burke, CEO, Guardian Pharmacy Services, based in Atlanta, GA; Treasurer Jeffrey M. Stamps, R.Ph., CEO, Remedi Senior Care, in Baltimore, MD; and Secretary Robert Warnock, R.Ph., Senior Vice President of Pharmacy Services, Pruitt Health, Norcross, GA. Also serving as new Board Members are Greg Weishar, CEO of Louisville, KY-based PharMerica Corp (NYSE: PMC); Kent Abbott, President and CEO, Pharmcare, based in Hydro, OK; Jill Krueger, President and CEO, Symbria, Inc., Warrenville, IL; Sam Mahfouz, Managing Member, FusionCare Pharmacy, Alexandria, LA; and Steve Wilson, President, Brockie Health Care, York, PA.

“LTC pharmacies’ unique clinical and consultative offerings are increasingly important to the broader long term and post-acute care policy equation,” Fogg stated. “Moving forward into 2017, our organizational priority will be to ensure lawmakers and regulators have a growing understanding of LTC pharmacies’ tremendous clinical and consultative value in terms of both improving quality of care and patient outcomes, and ensuring Medicare resources are spent efficiently.” Fogg praised the leadership of his predecessor, Founding Board Chairman Michael G. Bronfein, in helping to quickly establish SCPC as an effective, growing advocacy organization in Washington.

Because of overall growth, SCPC now represents LTC pharmacies that serve 45 percent of all patients in skilled nursing and assisted living facilities – or about 675,000 patients daily. These figures are up from 20 percent of all LTC pharmacies and roughly 375,000 patients just a year ago.

Fogg pointed out that President Obama signed into law the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), which contained an SCPC–sponsored provision exempting Medicare Part D beneficiaries in skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) and other LTC settings from an unnecessary medication management ‘lock-in‘ provision otherwise applied to Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

The newly-enacted law specifically recognizes the additional requirements already imposed on LTC pharmacies under Medicare and Medicaid Requirements of Participation and Medicare Part D rules. Significantly, this the first federal statutory provision recognizing the unique differences between the LTC pharmacy sector and all other pharmacy providers – a central SCPC rationale.

Other SCPC policy achievements, he said, include CMS finalizing a long-awaited rule prohibiting the use of prorated or daily dispensing fees (DDF) by Medicare Part D prescription drug plans and sponsoring two major Avalere research projects – a foundational educational tool for Congress detailing the major differences between LTC and retail pharmacies, and a separate Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) pricing analysis. The latter study has been used in congressional hearings and media coverage to bolster a research and data-based narrative that PBMs are not operating and fostering a true free market, as they claim.

Fogg also credited SCPC with identifying the problems for LTC pharmacies posed by the FDA’s proposed repackaging guidance, and effectively combined direct agency interactions with legislative advocacy – the only organization representing LTC pharmacies that has undertaken this dual track approach to this critical pending issue.

Alan G. Rosenbloom, President & CEO of SCPC, added that SCPC has successfully expanded its geographic and political footprint in 2016 – crucial, he said, to the continued effectiveness of grassroots, federal advocacy and communications activities. “Our long term public policy success in Washington – and our members’ long term success in the changing market environment – is predicated on our ability to build upon our growing reputation as a credible, trusted voice on policy. Our recent growth will help ensure we have the capacity, resources, scale and bipartisan policy solutions to do so.”