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Medicare donut hole forces participants to face an expensive gap in coverage in their Part D prescription drug plans… the costs of prescription drugs covered by a plan get split up in various ways, depending on your total prescription costs for a given year… donut hole simply forced participants to pay these additional drug costs entirely on their own, causing huge financial stress… Affordable Care Act,…started to fill in the donut hole… Over time,..discounts will gradually rise…by 2020, participants will pay only 25% of the net cost of brand-name and generic prescription drugs.

At least 15 hospitals across the country have installed, or are considering installing, copper components on "high-touch" surfaces easily contaminated with microbes — faucet handles on sinks, cabinet pulls, toilet levers, call buttons and IV poles…We’ve known for a long time that copper and other metals are effective in killing microbes,… Many experts have concluded that traditional methods for reducing hospital-acquired infections, such as hand washing, aren’t enough, because people don’t always do what they are supposed to do and many pathogens can survive for long periods on surfaces. That’s why hospitals are experimenting with other ways to destroy them…

Processing third-party claims and dealing with insurance companies can be frustrating even for the most experienced pharmacy technicians...there are a number of tools available to pharmacists and techs to make it easier to adjudicate and reconcile prescription claims…Technicians looking to improve workflow in their pharmacies might consider using one of the following services.

• eConcile (FDS) - automates the reconciliation process, eliminating the need for paper checks and verifying the accuracy of third-party payments. The tool will also identify unpaid or underpaid claims, reducing the potential for write-offs…
• EnsurePay (PBAhealth) - automated service that allows pharmacies and technicians to reconcile third-party claims electronically…works by comparing remittance files submitted by a pharmacy to incoming payments..claim will be electronically reconciled… allows its users to manage the process entirely
• Scriptmax (Innovatix) - Web-based prescription claim support program and data analytics service available to long-term care, home infusion, mail-order, retail, and specialty pharmacies…helps to improve the accuracy of the adjudication process, matching third-party payments with adjudicated amounts… performs a number of reviews,…

Doug Long, vice president of industry relations at IMS Health, talks about trends pharmacists should look out for in the future.

At least three reviewers recommended against Addyi (flibanserin) approval..They warned about possible side effects and expressed concern that “the marginal clinical benefits do not outweigh the serious risks,” according to a memo posted online that summarized the analysis within the U.S. regulatory agency… One reviewer particularly wanted more study of the interaction between Addyi and alcohol because the tests were conducted almost exclusively with men… FDA had rejected the drug,…in 2010 and 2013 before approving it in August...

University of Texas at El Paso officials are bringing a long-awaited dream to life now that state funding has been secured for a full-fledged School of Pharmacy….UTEP has been a part of a cooperative pharmacy program with the University of Texas at Austin since 1999, but administrators have longed for their own four-year program for just as long,… legislators…allocated $7 million this spring… first class of about 40 students will begin in fall 2017...

Eric A Wright, PharmD, MPH, investigator I for Geisinger Health Research and associate professor at Wilkes University, discusses metrics in care transitions that pharmacists should pay attention to.

Doug Long, vice president of industry relations at IMS Health, talks about how the movement toward value-based care in the US health system affects community pharmacy.

Paul Greenall, senior vice president of strategy and business development at McKesson Corporation, discusses how community pharmacies can build new networks of customers.

Thanks to the introduction of antiretroviral therapy, HIV-infected individuals are living longer than ever before,…this advancement means those with HIV are living long enough to experience aging’s comorbidities. They are also at higher risk for medication errors…as ART is associated with greater polypharmacy and drug-drug interactions…medication errors can increase viral resistance by decreasing ART levels, or increase risk of toxicity by elevating concentrations. Because of this, pharmacists are critical for preventing drug-drug interactions and other medical errors in HIV-infected hospital patients..