Patterns of pharmacy participation in Medicaid: implications for enrollee access

Little attention has been given to pharmacy participation in Medicaid and enrollee access to pharmacy services despite the potential for treatment problems if appropriate drug regimens are not followed. This study presents an economic model of pharmacy participation in Medicaid and descriptive and multivariate analyses of participation rates. A key variable was the adequacy of Medicaid payments for drugs dispensed to Medicaid enrollees. This was found to positively affect county-level pharmacy participation and, in turn, participation rates were a positive and significant determinant of the number of prescriptions per enrollee. Pharmacy location, size, and type also affected participation rates and enrollee utilization.