State Rep. Phillip Rigsby said he is still hopeful that lawmakers will address the issue of helping small and struggling pharmacies in the future.

Rigsby (R-Huntsville) introduced a pharmacy reimbursement bill last session, but was unable to get it through because of strong opposition from groups like the The Alliance of Alabama Healthcare Consumers.

House Bill 238 would have required pharmacy benefit managers to reimburse in-network pharmacies for the cost of acquiring medication and also adds a dispensing fee set by the federal government and used in programs such as Medicaid.

The state lawmaker discussed the issue further Friday on WVNN’s “The Yaffee Program.”

“I think I got more calls on the PBM legislation than I got on gaming and ethics combined, as most members did,” Rigsby said. “So I’ll probably go down in this session of having probably the most contentious piece of legislation, but a lot of that was based on false narratives.”

Rigsby said he’s going to work hard to bring a better bill to address the problem next session.

“And so we’re gonna go back to the drawing board,” he said. “I’m gonna sit down with some of the people involved, get a better understanding of how we can help health care providers … I’ve been contacted by several medical disciplines saying, ‘hey, pharmacies are not the only people that are being underpaid for our services. How do we address this?’ And so I think that’s a medical conversation that we need to have to make sure that we’re getting a quality care, but also affordable care so that you know these health care providers can stay in business and care for patients of Alabama.”

Rigsby also believes lawmakers will need to do a better job of educating the public about what really goes into the cost of prescription drugs.

“Well, I think part of it is education,” he said. “I think when most people go to the pharmacy specifically, and they go to their retail drugstore, they walk up to the counter and they’re told, ‘hey, you get to pay this price.’ A lot of people don’t understand where that price comes from.

“When you go to the prescription drugstore and you gave your prescription to the pharmacy, that pharmacy, if you’re using your insurance, transmits that transaction to your insurance company, or PBM, pharmacy benefit manager and they send back the price. So it’s actually your insurance company setting the price of what the patient pays and a lot of people don’t understand that they think the pharmacy sets the price of what they pay. Now if you’re paying cash. Of course that’s true, but if you’re using insurance, your insurance company is the one that sets that price. So there’s a little bit of an education issue that needs to be had there.”

Rigsby reiterated that he wants to help make healthcare more accessible and affordable in the Yellowhammer State.

“My goal is to have conversations with the PBMs with the insurances, with the manufacturers, with the wholesalers, with the Department of Insurance, to understand how specifically prescription pricing and prescription regulation is happening in Alabama,” he said. “I understand it on the pharmacy side because I used to have one, but I need to make sure in Alabama … how can we work together to make sure ultimately, this is for the patient so they have access to the medicines that they need, and they have a pharmacy in their community that can take care of their needs? All pharmacists want to take care of patients.”

Yaffee is a contributing writer to Yellowhammer News and hosts “The Yaffee Program” weekdays 9-11 a.m. on WVNN. You can follow him on Twitter @Yaffee