Congress Passes Telehealth Extensions, Punts PBMs and Generic Drug Prices to 2025

After considering an extensive healthcare package as part of a year-end spending bill, Congress voted to approve a pared-down deal that keeps the government open until March 2025. 

The spending package, approved on Friday after a failed vote in the House on Thursday, contains ASHP priorities, including telehealth flexibilities and healthcare extenders. 

An initial, bipartisan version of the legislative package included several additional ASHP-supported measures on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), patent reforms to encourage biosimilar and generic competition, and listing of pharmacist practitioners in Medicare Advantage networks. That version was not adopted.  

Importantly, Congress has rejected site-neutral policies in the spending proposals. These payment reforms, which would reduce Medicare reimbursement for administration of medications in hospital outpatient departments, are detrimental to health-system pharmacy and our patients. The policies were included in some PBM reform proposals, and ASHP has advocated to make sure they are separated from PBM reforms and not included as part of a government funding bill.  

ASHP staff are analyzing the continuing resolution further and will update members on any related healthcare policies.