John Lykins runs a small pharmacy in Lowell. He says the new Medicaid rules will be devastating to pharmacies everywhere... especially small ones in rural towns that tend to have larger medicaid populations. "There's some parts of the state where an independent pharmacy's Medicaid percentage may be 80 percent, they'll close, there's just no way they can do it," he says. According to the National Community Pharmacists Association, under the new rules, the federal government will reimburse pharmacists 36-percent *less than what the pharmacy pays for generic drugs... Causing pharmacies to actually lose money on generics and make money on brand names. Lykins says in order to stay afloat, many pharmacies will have to stop accepting Medicaid patients. "They'll have less choices, longer waits for some people, longer drives, less service." With about 20-percent of his customers on Medicaid, Lykins says he will definitely have to re-evaluate things under the new regulations. "You know it would just be a case by case basis, I don't think that I would quit taking Medicaid, but you would have to really look each time you fill a prescription to see if you can continue doing it. I'm not going to dispense it if i'm losing money."
