Modern Pharmacy Blog

By 2030, one in 5 Americans will be 65-plus. According to AARP, 87% of them want to age at home—not in assisted living communities. Yet as more Americans choose to age in place, their needs only grow: complex medication regimens, decreased mobility, and in many cases, increased reliance on caregivers.

Mastering short-cycle dispensing rules is crucial but often challenging. They can be confusing and prone to pitfalls like improper coding that leads to under-reimbursements. To understand why these rules exist and how they impact long-term care (LTC) pharmacies, let's explore their origins.

On December 8, 2003, President George W. Bush signed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 into law. It quickly got shortened to the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA) and Medicare, at long last, had a prescription drug benefit.The bill passed along partisan lines, with Republicans prevailing in the House by a vote of 220-215, and in the Senate by a tally of 54-44. Democrats worried about the $394 billion price tag, and the potential implications of the increased role of private insurers in Medicare.