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Pharmacy awaits OK on Medicaid prescriptions: Approval expected within days

Patients who had their Medicaid prescriptions filled at the Shelter Island Heights Pharmacy for years, but were turned away recently, will again be able to get their medicine, likely within days.

The new owners of the Pharmacy have taken “all appropriate measures during the licensing and application process” and have now received “expedited status” that should enable the staff to accept all Medicaid recipients’ prescriptions “in the coming days.” That statement came from a spokesman for Stacey Soloviev, the owner of the Pharmacy.

“We are sorry for any inconvenience this may have caused,” the statement said.

A story in last week’s paper, and on the Reporter’s website — “Pharmacy tells Medicaid recipients to use CVS” — reported on Islanders trying to fill prescriptions and being shutout.

Medicaid provides coverage to residents based on financial information, family size and other factors used to determine eligibility. Any pharmacy can withdraw from the Medicaid program or set limits on the number of Medicaid patients it can serve.

Sometime in December, Medicaid recipients were told they would have to take their prescriptions to CVS, requiring a ferry trip off-Island to a pharmacy on either the North or South forks. With a large senior population on the Island, some of whom are frail Medicaid patients, that news was particularly disturbing.

Even though CVS officials acknowledged some Medicaid recipients, depending on their specific plans, could receive the medications by mail, it was incumbent on each to check with their Medicaid providers to determine if the mail order option was open.