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With $200 billion lost to counterfeit drugs annually and patient safety issues, a chain-of-custody log that blockchain could enable holds promise...Blockchain has the potential to transform healthcare in general and the pharmacy supply chain in particular...The distributed ledger technology could offer legislative, logistical and patient safety benefits for pharmaceutical supply chain management. From a regulatory perspective in the United States, blockchain technological and structural capabilities, in fact, extraordinarily map to the key requirements of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act...The DSCSA outlines a 10-year timeframe that will require elements including medication track-and-trace, product verification and notification of stakeholders about illegitimate drugs. A shared ledger of information to enable each of these steps is a foundational aspect of blockchain technology...“Logistically, blockchain aligns well with federal efforts like the National Strategy for Global Chain Security,”...“One of the most promising benefits of blockchain from a patient safety perspective is to help stem the tide of the so-called SSFFC medicines – substandard, spurious, falsely labeled, falsified and counterfeit – that continue to plague the pharmaceutical supply chain.”

Nicole Crisano, PTNN. This weekly video program provides our readers with an in-depth review of the latest news, product approvals, FDA rulings and more.

The twin goals of improving health outcomes and generating economic savings can be achieved by ensuring more people take prescribed medicines as intended, and pharmacy services are extended to more Australians, the Society of Hospital Pharmacists of Australia said today...SHPA’s Federal Budget 2018-19 Submission details policy measures to boost medicines compliance – particularly among people at high risk of non-adherence and hospital readmission, and patients taking high cost PBS medicines (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme)...SHPA recommendations for the 2018-19 Federal Budget

• Support compliance and maximise return on investment in high cost PBS medicines.
• Reduce harm caused by opioid use initiated in hospitals
• Bridge the gap for high-risk patients leaving hospital and returning to care in the community.
• Provide additional funding to support seven-day clinical pharmacy services in hospitals in the National Health Funding Reform Agreements for Public Hospitals beyond 2020.
• Address safety and quality concerns in aged care by embedding pharmacists in Commonwealth facilities and home nursing services.
• Improve antimicrobial stewardship in all Australian healthcare facilities to address the threat of antimicrobial resistance.
• Fund hospitals to provide Closing the Gap Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme Measure subsidies to Indigenous people.
• Develop a national pharmacy workforce reform strategy.

Kmart Corp. has agreed to pay $32.3 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit alleging its pharmacies overcharged federal health care programs and some private insurers for generic prescription drugs..."Pharmacies that are not fully transparent about drug pricing can cause federal health programs to overpay for prescription drugs," Chad Readler, the acting assistant attorney general of the department's Civil Division, said..."This settlement should put pharmacies on notice that there will be consequences if they attempt to improperly increase payments from taxpayer-funded health programs by masking the true prices that they charge the general public for the same drugs."...The complaint was filed on behalf of former Kmart pharmacist James Garbe. According to the suit, in one case, Kmart had sold a 30-day supply of a generic version of a prescription drug for $5 to customers of its discount program, but then filed for reimbursement from the government for $152 for that same drug for its Medicare customers...Garbe will receive a whistleblower award of $9.3 million, which amounts to 29 percent of the federal government's recovery...

The number of small claims against the NHS (National Health Service) has risen by 26 per cent in one year...Four in five GPs say they are ordering needless tests and drugs for patients for fear of otherwise being sued...It comes amid soaring numbers of successful small claims against the NHS, which have risen by more than a quarter in one year...A survey of more than 1,300 doctors by the Medical Protection Society found 87 per cent are increasingly fearful of litigation...In total, 84 per cent said their worries about being sued had caused them to order needless tests or refer patients to consultants, while 41 per cent admitted to prescribing medication when it was not clinically required.

A Las Vegas investigator with the state Board of Medical Examiners was sexually harassed by her boss and retaliated against by co-workers after complaining to her superiors...The lawsuit...by investigator Lara Ward, alleges that the sexual harassment was part of a pattern of unprofessional conduct by officials in the state office that investigates complaints against licensed medical practitioners...While the sexual harassment claims form the core of the lawsuit, Ward also levels numerous allegations of unprofessional conduct by various members of the board. Among them, the complaint alleges that:

■ Andreas held personal vendettas against certain physicians, whom he targeted by keeping cases open after doctors were cleared of accusations.

■ Board officials closed several investigations of malpractice concerning high-profile physicians.

■ Doctors sued by a major insurance company for fraud had malpractice cases administratively closed. Those cases accused doctors of misuse of spinal cord and cervical injections and opioids.

■ Opioid overprescription investigations were delayed, including those resulting in death. The delays were part of an overall pattern of mishandling of overdose cases that included closure after lab reports were misread.

■ Female co-workers in the Las Vegas office favored by Andreas were promoted to investigative positions even though they lacked required bachelor’s degrees.

■ Ward, who has a bachelor’s in criminal justice from the University of Colorado, was denied a promotion to senior investigator and received poor marks from Chief of Investigations Pamela Castagnola on an employee review because she inquired about the position.

Laura Joszt, assistant managing editor at The American Journal of Managed Care. Welcome to This Week in Managed Care from the Managed Markets News Network

Despite personal attempts by Netanyahu and government ministers to persuade pharmaceuticals giant's chief to reduce number of planned layoffs, Kåre Schultz doubles down, insisting any compromise will only result in 'further redundancies and the closure of more factories,' notes program represents a ‘small part’ of cost slashing spree around the world...Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to convince...Teva CEO Kåre Schultz to reduce the number of Israeli layoffs he intends to execute in the pharmaceuticals giant in a plan that has sparked outrage and triggered multiple protests.

An Elko cardiologist has been arrested on 39 charges of unlawful distribution of prescription opioids and Medicare and Medicaid fraud...58-year-old Dr. Devendra I. Patel...is charged with...routinely prescribing fentanyl, hydrocodone, and oxycodone for his patients without a legitimate medical purpose from May 2014 to September 2017, and fraudulently billing Medicare and Medicaid for medical tests he did not perform. The indictment alleges Patel performed EKGs on his patients, so he could then order nuclear stress tests which he did not administer. He allegedly used a poorly-calibrated machine and presented his patients with fraudulent X-rays to deceive his patients into thinking they had coronary issues that needed to be treated by him...