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Dear Governor Hochul:

High-quality cancer care delivery is complex. It is best accomplished when patients have the option of receiving their services and medications directly from their cancer doctors. Cancer doctors routinely prescribe “oral oncolytics” - oral cancer medications that target and treat some of cancer patients’ most difficult conditions. Comprehensive cancer clinics dispense these medicines to patients through their own in-house pharmacies, which are integrated into the practice. Allowing patients to get these medications directly from their doctor’s office increases patient adherence, ensures timely receipt of medication, fosters coordination of care, and improves patient outcomes.

However, the process through which patients receive these medications is controlled by pharmacy benefit managers - PBMs. PBMs act as middlemen between insurers, patients, drug manufacturers, and doctors. However, their practices sometimes are designed in a way that can be viewed as benefiting themselves more than the patients that they serve. These methods can include steering patients to their own pharmacies and creating narrow pharmacy networks from which patients can get their drugs. Many of these choice-limiting practices are extremely well described in a 2019 investigative report by the New York Senate Committee on Investigations and Government Operations: Final Investigative Report: Pharmacy Benefit Managers in New York.

Assembly Bill 7598/Senate Bill 6603, passed by both chambers earlier this year, contain valuable provisions that will help protect patients. The bill reduces administrative fees paid to PBMs and creates additional fees paid to pharmacies in need. It mandates open networks which will provide patients with greater access and choice regarding how they get their drugs. Lastly, it prohibits PBMs from “steering” their patients to their own pharmacies also ensuring greater patient choice.

We urge you to sign this valuable piece of legislation that will protect cancer patients and improve the quality of care delivered by the oncology clinics that serve them.

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