What Does FDA CBD Approval Mean For Self-Funded Plans?

By Patrick Ouellette, Esq.

The Federal Drug Administration (FDA) recently issued the nation's first approval for medicine derived from marijuana-based compounds, cannabidiol (CBD). Given this news, the next reasonable question for the self-funded industry is how it will impact health plans’ coverage and exclusions of medicinal marijuana.

This has been and continues to be an unsettled area of law between federal and state statutes. Up until now, medicinal marijuana was not approved by the FDA and thus typically would either not fall under a plan document’s definition of a drug or otherwise be excluded. Traditionally, a plan offering CBD as a benefit had, on the surface, appeared to violate federal law because marijuana has been illegal at the federal level. Simultaneously, CBD was considered legal in many states, creating a conflict between federal and state law.

The FDA approval will likely not affect plans that want to continue to exclude all types of marijuana; if such plans have not already, they would only need to broaden their plan document exclusion language a bit to account for medical marijuana. Plans that do want to cover medical marijuana, however, may now see less risk in doing so now that a CBD product has been approved by the FDA. From a statutory perspective, these plans have the authority to dictate whether or not they want to cover FDA-approved CBD. Importantly, despite the fact that these plans will now have more flexibility to cover CBD, there are still administrative consequences to consider.

You can reach out to the Phia Group Consulting team here to discuss the effect of the FDA’s approval on your plans or clients.