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Tucked inside the 400 page state budget is a provision requiring more than a hundred thousand state employees and retirees to order their prescriptions by mail from out of state. The provision has more than 900 locally owned drug stores crying foul.

There are fewer calls these days to this family owned Pharmacy. That’s because a little debated provision in the state budget requires the 3 thousand state employees  to order their prescriptions 3 months at a time from a national mail order supplier. The change is putting a pinch on small neighborhood pharmacies like the one Lynn Massey has operated for more than 25 years.

“I’ve not laid anyone off, but I’ve had to cut hours” says Massey.

Mail order contractor CVS’s website shows one facility in South Florida, but the pharmacists say it is just as likely the prescriptions are being filled in Rhode Island or Illinois, sending jobs out of state.

Representative Jimmy Patronis has taken concerns about the plan to the highest levels. “It’s a fine line between the fiduciary responsibility of getting the best bang for our buck, for those resources, and challenging somebody’s ability to make a living,” says Patronis.

The nine hundred locally owned pharmacies in Florida say they weren’t even given a chance to compete on price

Missing from the budget language is the phrase “any willing Provider.” Had those words been in the bill, Massey says she and the 900 other local pharmacists could have competed on price. “Potentially even cheaper” she says, adding,  “I don’t know what the state is sending out of state as far as the money goes.”

While Massey has cut employees hours, others pharmacies have left staff go. With the mail order requirement in the budget for the second year in a row, the lost business is likely to have a cumulative negative effect on locally owned drug stores.

The Department of Management Services, which administers the program, says it does not have actual cost savings, but provided a CVS Caremark estimate of four point one million in 2010.The mail order mandate has been in effect since January 2011 and will run through June 2012. (Read more on the DMS website:  http://www.myflorida.com/mybenefits/Tools/FAQs_PPO.htm