Republican Senators Seek to Introduce Formulary Bill

Monday, October 16, 2017 | 0

Three Republican senators are seeking cosponsors for a bill to create a workers' compensation drug formulary in Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

Sen. Joseph Scarnati

The senators — Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati, Banking and Insurance Committee Chairman Donald White and Sen. Mike Regan, R-York — circulated a memo to lawmakers Wednesday saying that a formulary could rein in the prescription of opioids and compounded pain creams, according to the newspaper.

Claimants' attorney Samuel Pond has said that Republicans' efforts to create a formulary have "nothing to do with opioids" and everything to do with saving insurance companies money. He said the lawmakers pushing the bills have a pro-insurance agenda.

The sponsor of a formulary bill introduced in February, Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, R-Lehigh, has received $15,900 from insurance political action committees over the past five years, the Morning Call reported.

Pond isn’t without a stake in the matter, either: His firm, Pond Lehocky, has a financial interest in the mail-order pharmacy Workers First, which dispenses medication to injured workers.

Pond Lehocky's connection with Workers First was put in the crosshairs last month when the Inquirer ran a story in which prominently quoted sources called the connection "an unholy alliance" and "ripe for corruption."

The firm published a lengthy rebuttal to the Inquirer piece on its website, saying the article “has taken something normal and legal and turned it into something that sounds dark and evil.” Pond said that many workers’ compensation law firms partner with pharmacies that deliver medication to injured workers.

He praised Workers First’s business model as worker-friendly. Like other mail-order pharmacies such as Injured Workers Pharmacy, Workers First eats the cost of medications and goes after carriers for it later, rather than waiting for carriers to authorize payment before a worker can receive a prescription. This model protects against delays that could “have potentially catastrophic consequences for our clients, many who rely on their prescriptions to live,” the rebuttal states.

The memo Scarnati, White and Regan circulated appears to reference the Inquirer story, calling law firms’ partnerships with pharmacies “ethically questionable” and saying they want to “ensure injured workers are prescribed the right medications and out of medical necessity, not merely as a profit motive,” according to the newspaper.

The Inquirer reported Friday that the trio hoped to introduce the bill the following week, and that its language would mirror Mackenzie’s House Bill 18.