GHLF, along with dozens of other organizations representing patients asked HSS to take definitive action to ensure that access to pharmacy services will remain when the current public health emergency formally ends.

The Global Healthy Living Foundation signed a letter to Secretary of Health Xavier Becerra of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) addressing the importance of extending policies that gave Americans access to essential pharmacy services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Through a series of Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act amendments in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the HHS supported vaccination, testing, and therapeutics access at more than 41,000 pharmacies across the country. These authorizations allowed pharmacies and staff to provide more than 45 million COVID-19 tests and administer over 258 million COVID-19 vaccines, accounting for two out of every three vaccine doses.

These policies have also allowed pharmacist to provide equitable access to pandemic-related services. According to a study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, more than 40 percent of those vaccinated at pharmacies were from racial and ethnic minority groups, and half of pharmacy COVID vaccination sites were located in areas with high social vulnerability.

GHLF, along with dozens of other organizations representing patients, public health advocates, pharmacists, pharmacy staff, and pharmacies, asked HSS to take definitive action to ensure that access to pharmacy services will remain when the current public health emergency formally ends. At present, 70 percent of Americans support extending these policies and 68 percent support making them permanent, according to a poll conducted by Morning Consult and commissioned by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS). This letter to Secretary Becerra encourages extending pharmacy personnel flexibilities through October 1st, 2024.

The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated the immense importance of pharmacists, pharmacy staff, and pharmacies in preventing, diagnosing, and treating disease. “Maintaining access to these services will allow for an effective response to ongoing health crises and ensure our chronic disease community has continued access to needed vaccines, COVID testing and therapeutics,” says Robert Popovian, PharmD, Chief Science Policy Officer at Global Healthy Living Foundation.

Make your voice heard! Join the GHLF 50-State Network for advocacy email updates, alerts and actions.

Want to Get More Involved with Patient Advocacy?

The 50-State Network is the grassroots advocacy arm of CreakyJoints and the Global Healthy Living Foundation, comprised of patients with chronic illness who are trained as health care activists to proactively connect with local, state, and federal health policy stakeholders to share their perspectives and influence change. If you want to effect change and make health care more affordable and accessible to patients with chronic illness, learn more here.