System Values Mail-Order Drugs Over Pharmacies

I’m glad someone has taken notice of the growing trend of health plans pushing patients out of local pharmacies and toward mail-order drug suppliers (“Finding It Tough to Compete With Mail-Order Drugs,” June 26).

I’ve practiced pharmacy for 27 years and, over the last six years, management care organizations have refused to let community pharmacies into their health plan network, and I’ve seen a growing number of my patients--95% of whom speak primarily Spanish--being penalized financially with higher co-payments for smaller medication quantities. If they use mail-order drug suppliers, health plans will often give them much cheaper co-payments for triple the amount of medication.

Where is the justice in a system that takes away the care my patients need from a health-care provider they know and trust?

--JOSE MARCO

Los Angeles