Law360 Article About How Pharmacies are Handling COVID Vaccines Includes Insight from Richie Davis
Richie Davis, a Quarles & Brady partner in the Health & Life Sciences Practice Group based in the firm’s Milwaukee office, was quoted in a Law360 article about how U.S. pharmacies are dealing with the current regulatory uncertainty surrounding their ability to provide COVID vaccines.
Pharmacies still are waiting for direction on this year’s COVID booster from the federal committee charged with providing guidance on vaccines for the public. Additional uncertainty stems from the FDA’s decision to narrow its approval of who is eligible for the shot this year.
Davis noted that payors also are impacted by the current lack of clear guidance on the COVID vaccine. An excerpt:
Payors are required to cover vaccines recommended by the ACIP and CDC at no cost to patients. But in the absence of those recommendations, it's unclear how they'll react to coverage options for patients.
Richard Davis, a partner at Quarles & Brady LLP, told Law360 that it's "speculative" at this point to guess what payors are going to do.
Payors will have the flexibility and authority to react to the current environment in various ways. While some could choose to deviate from federal recommendations and look to a different source for guidelines, Davis said that ultimately, "it's really challenging to predict" how things will pan out.
"It's a shifting landscape," he said.