Independent pharmacies, concerned that Florida’s planned Medicaid overhaul could elbow them out, are forming a consumer-business coalition to keep their side in talks about the drive to put 3 million Floridians into managed care.

At public hearings across the state in June, pharmacies warned they could lose out when HMOs and other managed care networks gain authority over Medicaid dollars. Many of the hometown drug stores worry that the Legislature’s refusal to order managed care companies to use pharmacies as providers would mean they could lose business to mail-order drug companies.

Managed care companies could even keep more profits in-house by owning prescription-by-mail services, druggists warned Monday.

“The business that my family has owned for more than five decades is in serious danger of having to shut our doors due to new laws that do nothing to save costs in Medicaid and needlessly ship jobs to out-of-state mail order companies,” said Alexis McMillan, a pharmacists at Economy Drug Store in Tallahassee.

The druggists have formed under the banner Pharmacy Choice and Access Now. They want assurances from state officials that Medicaid patients would be allowed to have prescriptions filled at whatever pharmacy they choose; end mandatory mail-order prescrptions for Medicaid patients and state workers; and allow Medicaid patients to have prescriptions filled in-person.

The state’s Agency for Health Care Administration is submitting a proposal for the Medicaid overhaul by Aug. 1 to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which must sign-off on the Legislature’s plan.

The new standard builds on the HMO-styled plans introduced for Medicaid patients in Broward, Baker, Clay, Nassau and Duval counties, beginning in 2006, but which have drawn poor to mixed reviews from policy analysts.

Gov. Rick Scott‘s characterization of taxes, regulation and litigation as the “axis of unemployment” during his inaugural speech yesterday is destined to become a familiar mantra for fellow Republicans as they embrace his pro-business agenda.

It didn’t take long for Rep. Matt Hudson to latch onto the catchphrase to pitch his latest bill resurrecting legislation vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist last year.

Hudson, a fellow Republican who hails from Scott’s Naples hometown, filed the bill (HB 119) that would “reduce, streamline and clarify regulations” for providers overseen by the Agency for Health Care Administration, according to a press release issued by Hudson’s office.

“HB 119 will be essential in fighting the axis of unemployment and ensuring that the tax dollars of Florida’s citizens are not being wasted,” Hudson said in the statement.

Agency for Health Care Administration Secretary Holly Benson resigned from her post this morning, the day after meeting with Gov. Charlie Crist who appointed her to the post in Feb. 2008.

“I had a meeting with the Governor the other day to talk about some opportunities that lie ahead, and I regret that because of those opportunities I will no longer be able to serve as your Secretary,” Benson wrote in an e-mail to AHCA workers this morning.

Benson, a former state representative from the Panhandle, is expected to jump into the attorney general’s race next month, according to sources close to the Pensacola Republican. That could elevate interest in a GOP primary against Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp, who’s already announced his candidacy to replace Bill McCollum. Democratic state Sens. Dave Aronberg of Greenacres and Dan Gelber of Miami Beach are already engaged in a heated battle for the state’s top law enforcement chief.

Crist tapped Benson, a bond lawyer, to head AHCA in 2008. Before that, she left her Pensacola House seat to head DBPR, again at Crist’s bidding.

In the House, Benson was the force behind a model Medicaid reform project that has had mixed results. (more…)