The Latest on Proposed Changes to Wisconsin Patient Counseling Rule That Will Impact Mail Order Pharmacies: Board Submits Final Rule Draft
On January 3, 2020, the Wisconsin Pharmacy Examining Board (the "Board") met to finalize the proposed draft of the revised WI Admin. Code PHAR 7. The primary purpose of this meeting was to review and respond to the clearinghouse report and the comments from the public hearing held on December 17, 2019. The Board ultimately decided to revise the proposed rule related to patient counseling, such that pharmacists now have more discretion as to when verbal patient counseling should be offered.
In its previous draft of the patient counseling rule developed at the December 17 meeting, the Board had decided on language that would have required that patient counseling “be communicated verbally unless in the pharmacist’s professional judgement it is not in the best interest of the patient or the patient’s agent or is not practicable.” At the January 3 meeting, the Board revised this language to reflect that consultation “shall be communicated verbally when in the pharmacist’s professional judgment it is in the best interest of the patient” (or, as stated in the plain language summary accompanying the proposed rule draft, “The consultation is required to be verbal when the pharmacist deems it is in the patient’s best interest to do so.”). The Board framed this change as moving from a requirement for a pharmacist to "opt out" of verbal consultation to a requirement for a pharmacist to "opt in" to verbal consultation. It is also important to note that the Board’s draft rule allows for this consultation to occur before or after the delivery of the prescription to the patient or patient’s agent.
The full text of the Board’s proposed rule with plain language summary is available. The draft rule will now be referred to standing committees in both houses of the state legislature for a 30-day passive review. Once those reviews are completed, the draft rule will then be sent to the Joint Committee for Review of Administrative Rules (JCRAR) for an additional 30-day passive review. If the committees do not receive any objections, the rule will be submitted to the Legislative Reference Bureau (LRB) for publication.
We will continue to monitor the status of the proposed rule going forward and will attend the relevant meetings to provide updates on the status of this proposed rulemaking.
For more information on how the proposed rule changes may affect your business, please contact your Quarles & Brady attorney or:
- Susan B. Trujillo: (602) 229-5318 / susan.trujillo@quarles.com
- Richard B. Davis: (414) 277-5844 / richard.davis@quarles.com
- Christopher M. Guthrie: (608) 283-2472 / christopher.guthrie@quarles.com