The administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis may ask the Legislature for an additional $4 million to maintain a warehouse in Lakeland for the state’s Canadian Prescription Drug Importation Program.
The Agency for Health Care Administration seeks the support in its legislative budget request for state fiscal year 2025-26. Florida law requires agencies to submit spending requests that can serve as a sneak peek of what the governor will include in his recommended budget for the coming year.
Without the annual $4 million bump, “AHCA would be unable to implement the program as directed by the Legislature and no longer have the infrastructure required to support the Program,” the agency wrote in its budget request.
Florida was the first state to gain approval to import prescription drugs from Canada when the Food and Drug Administration gave the state the green light in January 2024 for a two-year pilot project.
But it continues to face delays in implementation.
AHCA is required to submit a report annually to the Legislature and the governor’s office with a lengthy list of data requirements and documentation showing “the program provides cost savings to the state on imported prescription drugs. “
The Florida Phoenix requested a copies of annual reports from 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024 but the agency did not respond.
The $4 million request coincides with the Lakeland Ledger’s dive into the payments the DeSantis administration has made to LifeScience Logistics, which holds the contract with the state to administer the yet-to-be implemented program.
Four years after LifeScience Logistics built a warehouse in Lakeland, the Ledger reported the “facility is a quiet place.” The lack of activity belies a financial footprint that shows LifeScience Logistics received $77.2 million in fiscal year 2025. That was a sharp increase from the $51.7 million the company collected for the contract between fiscal years 2021 through 2024.
“Since July 1, the start of fiscal year 2026, the state has paid the company $3.7 million. That includes three deposits on Sept. 2 totaling $1.3 million for construction services,” the Ledger reported.
Alex Azar is chairman of the board for LifeScience Logistics. Azar served as U.S. secretary of Health and Human Services under Trump’s first administration.
Medicaid survey
AHCA’s request also shows that the state wants a baseline analysis of its Medicaid population’s health and social services “to support informed policy decisions and allocation of resources to support individual Medicaid enrollees on their path towards stability, economic self-sufficiency, and graduation from enrollment.”
There were 4.07 million people enrolled in Florida’s Medicaid program in August 2025, the latest available data. Florida’s top economists routinely meet to analyze Florida Medicaid data and to project costs, utilization, and enrollment trends. The group, known as the Social Services Estimating Conference, examines Medicaid costs with the exception of those related to people with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
The budget narrative says AHCA would competitively procure the $3.5 million contract.
Network provider audits
AHCA relies on Medicaid managed care plans to care for the majority of people in the safety net program. The August data show 2.96 million enrolled in some sort of state-contracted Medicaid managed care plan.
The plans are required to maintain a network of providers to meet the health care access standard set by the state. Plans must establish and maintain an accurate and complete electronic database of contracted providers, locations, and hours of operation, plus specialty credentials, among other things. Each managed care plan is required to submit quarterly reports to the Agency identifying the number of enrollees assigned to each primary care provider.
In its budget narrative, AHCA says it needs $6.8 million to hire an outside vendor to audit the provider networks and any other activities to verify provider networks as identified by the Agency.”
Unlike other spending proposals, that $6.8 million isn’t coming from public coffers, per se. “The managed care plans will pay the Agency for the expenses of the vendor’s network review, at the rates established by the Agency, proportionate to the managed care plan’s enrolled population. The Agency will then transfer payment to the vendor for services rendered,” the budget notes.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: info@floridaphoenix.com.
Disclaimer
The information contained in South Florida Reporter is for general information purposes only.
The South Florida Reporter assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions in the contents of the Service.
In no event shall the South Florida Reporter be liable for any special, direct, indirect, consequential, or incidental damages or any damages whatsoever, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tort, arising out of or in connection with the use of the Service or the contents of the Service. The Company reserves the right to make additions, deletions, or modifications to the contents of the Service at any time without prior notice.
The Company does not warrant that the Service is free of viruses or other harmful components
