Iowa General Assembly, Health and Human Services Vice Chair, Brett Barker (R, Dist 51) has introduced a new accessible prescription labeling bill HF 2033.
HF2033 has some significant differences from the previous 2024 and 2025 accessible labeling bills which address pharmacy concerns about redundancy, timing and reimbursement:
- Allows pharmacies to refer patients to another pharmacy within a reasonable distance to provides accessible labels, bag tags and medical guides already.
- Provides "a reasonable development period" for pharmacies before the requirement to provide accessible labels in a comparable time frame to other patients.
- The Board of Pharmacy must annually publish a list of pharmacies that provide accessibility measures on their website.
- Health Carriers/Insurance shall pay an enhanced dispensing fee to reimburse the costs associated with accessibility measures under this section
The idea of health carrier reimbursement is also a key component of Ohio's current bill HB374.