As a local community pharmacist in Kentucky, I feel it is important to call out why big business goes to great efforts to lobby the federal government to maintain health care policies that hurt consumers. Just this February, they successfully lobbied the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services to continue allowing limited pharmacy networks for Medicare recipients. They are perpetuating an outdated view of community pharmacies. We can't let them continue to mislead policymakers and have patients continue to receive limited access to medicine.

The changes considered by CMS to Medicare's prescription drug benefit plan would have expanded pharmacy participation and ensure access and choice for seniors all across the country. These changes also value the role that community pharmacies play for seniors — ensuring quality care and medication adherence that a mail-order program simply cannot provide.

Yet, opponents to these changes, notably large Pharmacy Benefits Managers express an uneducated view of pharmacies — as simple dispensaries. For years PBMs suggested that patients would be better served by mail-order programs, despite patient dislike for this option, and never based their arguments on quality of care.