Like many states, Alaska is struggling with a shortage of physicians, especially in its vast rural areas. Accessing basic health care might get a bit easier for residents there if the governor signs legislation that would expand the authority of pharmacists to prescribe some medications without a doctor’s appointment.
Legislators passed the bill on the final day of their session last week. If signed into law, it would empower pharmacists to treat conditions such as flu, strep throat and urinary tract infections, as well as some chronic illnesses such as asthma and diabetes.
That makes Alaska the latest example of a state trying to make better use of the underutilized medical expertise of pharmacists, who already have the training and expertise to deal with many common ailments.
Every state has granted these health care professionals at least some prescribing authority. They can often administer vaccines or dispense certain medications, such as hormonal contraception, HIV drugs or opioid overdose antidotes. In recent years, a few states such as Idaho, Colorado and Montana have granted pharmacists even wider berth to act independently from physicians.
Alaska’s bill doesn’t go nearly as far as those reforms, but it still has the salutary effect of making it easier for people to access care. Pharmacists often have more knowledge about medications than the doctors who prescribe them. Licensed pharmacists have doctorate degrees, and they are often easier to access than primary care clinics.
Medical associations have warned that pharmacists lack diagnostic training and might miss a serious underlying condition. They also fear that shifting doctors’ duties to pharmacies would make it harder for them to see patients’ complete medical history. But doctors fail to correctly diagnose people all the time, and it’s difficult to justify blocking access to commonly used drugs when someone has symptoms that warrant a prescription.
In Alaska, opposition primarily came from social conservatives who feared that the bill would become a “gateway” to letting pharmacies prescribe abortion drugs, even though the state’s Department of Law clarified that is not the case. Legislators even amended the bill to restrict pharmacists from prescribing medications classified as high risk by the Food and Drug Administration.
All these criticisms overlook the benefits of pharmacy liberalization, especially in underserved areas. Idaho’s reforms helped spur the opening of pharmacies in small towns that had been without them for decades. There is no evidence of adverse effects. Those are successes other states should be emulating.
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