FILED ON: 5/31/2016

SENATE  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  No. 2313

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

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In the One Hundred and Eighty-Ninth General Court
(2015-2016)

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An Act relative to the dispensing of certain cancer related drugs.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:
 

SECTION 1. Notwithstanding any general or special law to the contrary, there is hereby established a task force to study and analyze health insurance payer practices that require certain categories of drugs, including those that are administered by injection or infusion, to be dispensed by a third-party specialty pharmacy directly to a patient or to a health care provider with the designation that such drugs be used for a specific patient and not for the general use of the provider. The task force shall conduct an investigation and study of such practice including the extent to which it affects health care quality, patient safety, and health care cost containment goals, and whether such practice should be regulated or restricted.

The task force shall consist of the following 11 members: the secretary of the executive office of health and human services or designee, who shall chair the task force; the commissioner of public health or designee; the commissioner of insurance or designee; the executive director of the health policy commission or designee; the executive director of the group insurance commission or designee; the president of Massachusetts Hospital Association; the executive director of the Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals; a representative of the Massachusetts Society of Health-System Pharmacists; a representative of the Conference of Boston Teaching Hospitals; the president of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans; and the president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts, Inc., or designee.

The task force shall prepare a report of its findings, including recommended legislation. The task force shall file the report with the house and senate committees on ways and means, the joint committee on health care financing and the joint committee on public health no later than July 1, 2017.