State Initiatives
The “bills of interest” below are currently in-progress in the Minnesota Legislature and need your MN Senator’s (1) and MN Representative’s (1) support!
Each bill’s section includes a brief description of Why it’s important, the bill’s Status, and What you can do to help get that bill passed. Next to the title of each piece of legislation you’ll find links to its status page (one for the House of Representatives’ version and one for the Senate’s version) on the MN Legislature’s website so that you can read up on where that bill is at in the policy-making process.
Bills in the MN House of Representatives and MN Senate can have up to 35 and 5 total authors, respectively, so we recommend that you prioritize reaching out to your legislators about bills they have yet to co-sponsor.
To find out who represents you in our state and federal governments, visit the MN Legislature’s website and enter the address where you’re registered to vote.
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If you don't vote in the state of Minnesota, check out what’s happening in your state currently to address pharmacy-related issues such as PBM abuse, provider status for pharmacists, test-to-treat legislation, equal payment for medical services, etc.
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Click here to access the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA)’s 2024 State Wins for Community Pharmacy to see the positive gains that have been made across state governments this year (notably, you’ll see that our state of Minnesota is NOT among them… we’ve got work to do!).
LEGISLATIVE TRACKER
Easily access the names, contact information, relevant committee assignments, and more for ALL of Minnesota’s state and federal legislators.
Stay up to date with MyBills
Did you know that you can also “subscribe” to email updates from your legislators to keep tabs on their legislative activity and community outreach?
To subscribe, head to the MN Legislature’s website and locate your legislator by clicking on “Members” under either the House of Representatives or Senate. Once you locate their profile, select “Click to subscribe” next to “Email updates” (located to the right of the legislator’s headshot).
If you’d like to stay up to date on the trajectory of these and other bills being debated in the Minnesota State Legislature, click here to set up a free MyBills account.
MyBills allows you to track House and Senate bills by bill number and topic. When you log in, your bills of interst will be listed along with information about recent or upcoming actions. Please note that MyBills does NOT send email notifications when actions are taken on bills; rather, you must login to your account to see these updates.
Minnesota is helping lead the charge nationally for prescription drug price transparency.
Click below to learn about their several ongoing initiatives!
January 30, 2025 | John (Owner & Pharmacist) shows MN state Representatives de-identified examples of underwater claims processed (unknown by the patients) through GoodRx
The 2025 MN Legislative Session has officially ended.
We are proud to report that the two pharmacy provisions we pushed hard for this session were recently signed into law by Governor Walz!
Establish a Single PBM (SPBM) model for Medicaid to increase transparency and ensure fair reimbursement to pharmacies. All Managed Care Organizations (MCOs), such as HealthPartners and UCare, who administer prescription benefits on behalf of Medicaid patients must use a single PBM, which will be chosen by the state of Minnesota. This will save the state a ton in admin fees, ensures that pharmacies are paid appropriately (NADAC + the state’s fee-for-service dispensing fee), and increases transparency.
Establish a Directed Pharmacy Payment Program (DPPP), which will help prevent further closures until the SPBM goes into effect. Qualified pharmacies will be paid a $4.50 dispensing fee for all MCO claims for Medicaid patients, effectively increasing pharmacies’ current dispensing fee of $0.00 to $0.80 per prescription to $4.50. Qualified pharmacies are defined as Indys, pharmacies in pharmacy deserts, and common ownership with 12 or less stores. This legislation will be in effect until mid-2027.
Members of our pharmacy are continuing to working with other MNIndys (Minnesota Independent Pharmacists) members, lobbyists, and legislators to plan for next year’s session and achieving the following goals:
1. Require fair reimbursement for commercial plans via the Minnesota Community Pharmacy Access and Fair Reimbursement Act
This bill—which we’re working on as a part of the MNIndys Legislative Working Group!—seeks to establish a fair floor for commercial pharmacy reimbursement using a NADAC++ model:
National Average Drug Acquisition Cost + CODS dispensing fee + 2% or $25 (whichever is lower) to cover the cost of the myriad of services provided by pharmacists that aren’t currently covered by insurance, such as triaging walk-in’s, providing guidance on over-the-counter products, and providing health screenings (see graphics below for a visual representation)
If passed, this bill would also ban PBM tactics that restrict patient access (e.g., patient steering, spread pricing); require PBMs to maintain geographically accessible pharmacy networks so that patients in both urban and rural areas aren’t left without local pharmacy care; and impose penalties for unfair reimbursement and establishes a process for pharmacies to challenge low payments from PBMs, ensuring patients aren’t left without care due to unjust practices.
2. 62W revisions & enforcement
Unfortunately, the original PBM Transparency Act (62W) introduced in 2019 has proven insufficient at curbing PBMs’ abusive conduct in the State of Minnesota. This bill includes a number of provisions that would enhance this legislation and provide an additional level of regulation and appropriate accountability for unlawful behavior.
We’ll also continue to work with the MN Department of Commerce and Attorney General’s office to enhance the enforcement of unlawful behavior and establish penalties for PBMs breaking the law, as is being done in other states across the U.S.
3. Address anticompetition by forcing PBMs to divest from their retail, mail order, and specialty pharmacies
A big part of PBMs’ power comes from the fact that they own and operate their own retail, mail order, and specialty pharmacies, which they then “steer” patients to through ethically questionable and outright illegal tactics. We’ll be pursuing legislation modeled after others states’, which disallows entities from being licensed as both a PBM and a pharmacy (i.e., you can be one or the other, but not both).
3. Outlaw PBM fees
PBMs LOVE fees—they add them to everything they (or require that we pharmacies) do, including transmission and transaction of claims and other information, as well as credentialing. They also “clawback” (retroactively collect) monies already paid out to pharmacies for a variety of reasons. We’ll be pursuing legislation modeled after Arizona’s recently-passed law that outlaws these kinds of fees.
4. Medicaid coverage for health services by pharmacists
This legislation aims to ensure that pharmacists are financially compensated for providing healthcare services to Medicaid and MNSure patients, including chronic disease management, medication and vaccine administration, prescribing hormonal contraception, and conducting health screenings. Currently, Minnesota Medicaid and MNSure are not reimbursing pharmacies for these kinds of services provided to patients and authorized within their scope of practice (MN-151). For other providers in Minnesota—including RNs, APRNs, PAs, and chiropractors—Medicaid and MNSure reimbursement is tied to the healthcare services covered for physicians under MN-62D, 62A, and MN-256B.0625 and MN-256L.03. By adding pharmacists to the list of covered providers under Medicaid and MNSure, we can ensure that Minnesota pharmacists are compensated for the critical services they provide to patients. This bill mirrors consensus legislation that was passed for commercially insured patients during the 2024 Legislation Session.
Bills of interest
Establish reimbursement rate requirement for Prepaid Medical Assistance Program (PMAP)
HF464 & SF52
Why it’s important
Managed Care Organizations (MCOs)—such as HealthPartners and UCare—are currently responsible for managing the care of the 85% of Minnesotan Medicaid patients on a Prepaid Health Plan (i.e., who are part of PMAP instead of having “straight Medical Assistance,” where the state covers the cost of their care directly). Operating independently on our state’s behalf, these entities have taken the opportunity to increase their profit margins by chronically underpaying healthcare providers, including pharmacies (a big reason why more and more providers literally cannot afford to take care of Medicaid patients). Recently introduced in the MN Senate, this bill would build upon the proposed “band-aid” solution of a directed pharmacy dispensing payment program (HF4916 | SF5123; see below) by establishing a permanent requirement that MCOs reimburse pharmacies like us at the state-determined dispensing fee rate.
The passing of this legislation would require that MCOs reimburse pharmacies at the dispensing fee rate determined by the Cost of Dispensing Survey (CODS) that is now required by law to be completed every 3 years. It would replace the proposed directed pharmacy dispensing payment program (HF4916 | SF5123), which, if passed, will function as a temporary solution to keep struggling pharmacies open until then.
Status as of March 28th, 2025
HF464 was introduced by Representative Harder (R—17B) on 2/13/25 (originally as HF5028 on 3/18/24) and immediately referred to the Health Finance and Policy Committee. It currently has no additional authors and a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
SF52 was introduced by Senator Gruenhagen (R—17) on 1/16/25 (originally as SF4843 on 3/11/24) and was immediately referred to the Health and Human Services Committee. It currently has no additional authors and a hearing has yet to be scheduled.
Click on the following links to view the current status of these bills—including any additional authors that have been added since the date listed above—on the MN Legislature’s official website: HF464 | SF52
What you can do
Contact your MN Representative and Senator! Bills in the MN House and Senate can have 35 and 5 total sponsors, respectively. However, even if a bill already has the maximum number of cosponsors, your legislator will eventually need to vote on the bill in order for it to pass, so it’s good to ask for their support either way.
For detailed instructions on how to contact your legislators and helpful tips and tricks, check out our How to Advocate page.