Patients on Medicaid transition to NYRx

ROCHESTER, N.Y. – For patients on Medicaid, Rite Aid Regional Pharmacy Director Daniel Bentz said the transition to NYRx should be seamless.

“So the difference between managed Medicaid and the straight Medicaid shouldn’t mean anything to customers. The only difference is who is paying for the medication,” Bentz said.

Bentz said that under the NYRx program, the government is essentially cutting out the middle man.

New York State is going to work directly with the prescribers, the doctors, the pharmacies, to take care of the customer health,” Bentz said.

But according to Trillium Health, the transition may not be as easy as envisioned.

In a statement today, Trillium Health said, in part, “based on errors that occurred during tests today, we anticipate problems processing Medicaid prescriptions on Monday. Patients will have to wait longer for their prescriptions due to the changes implemented by Medicaid.”

Problems that Bentz said he isn’t anticipating at Rite Aid.

Sometimes you go into the pharmacy, maybe your medication isn’t covered and that’s frustrating, this process, this change, will eliminate that middle man, help us work with doctors, and you should see more medications covered more often when you go into the pharmacy,” Bentz said.

But no matter what, Bentz said that when you come to the pharmacy, be sure to come prepared.

“Make sure you bring in your insurance card, it’s your Medicaid card, your CIN number is what we need, it’s either on your managed care card already, or on your Medicaid card,” Bentz said.