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majority of the nation’s hospitals are being penalized by Medicare for having patients frequently return within a month of discharge — this time losing a combined $420 million, government records show…fourth year of federal readmission penalties, 2,592 hospitals will receive lower payments for every Medicare patient that stays in the hospital — readmitted or not — Since the fines began, national readmission rates have dropped,…

There’s so much for parents to talk about with teens heading off to college for the first time…There’s the safe-sex talk, the nutrition talk, the get-enough-sleep talk, the partying talk and the study-hard talk. In between all the talking and the packing and the planning, teaching kids how to safely self-medicate with over-the-counter preparations for colds, headaches and sore muscles might not be on the parental radar.

1. One day after Shire announced plans to buy Foresight Biotherapeutics for $300 million, the drugmaker said it had made an offer to acquire Baxalta in a deal worth $30 billion,..
2. The political and scientific purpose of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a nonprofit created by the Affordable Care Act to conduct comparative effectiveness research, continues to drive disagreement in Washington,..
3. CVS Health reported higher pharmacy claims and strong sales in its specialty pharmacy business during the second quarter of 2015,...
4. An analysis conducted by Reuters found that drug industry productivity is growing, with the number of new pharmaceutical product launches hitting a 17-year high in 2014....
5. Using chemotherapy in the abdomen to treat ovarian cancer is effective but the method is rarely used in the US,..

How can a pharmacist differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate early narcotic refill requests?…red flag is when patients regularly request early refills for narcotic prescriptions…pharmacists who are repeatedly confronted with early refill requests have a responsibility to say "no" .. those who ignore this issue and repeatedly fill narcotics too soon are being careless with their license and the profession’s reputation.

1. "The doctor wrote it, so I’m supposed to get it."
2. "It was stolen from my home."
3. "I was robbed."
4. "Someone else picked up my meds and took them."
5. "I’m traveling out of state."
6. "The pharmacy miscounted the day’s supply."
7. "The insurance allows it 5 days early."
8. "I’ll just pay cash."
9. "The other pharmacist allows it."
10. "This is for my leg pain."
11. "The other one didn’t work, so I flushed it."
12. "You shorted me pills."
13. "I lost them, dropped them, forgot them at a friend’s house, dog ate them, washed them..."

Bloomberg’s Julie Hyman reports on the Shire’s bid for Baxalta, (video)

Drug industry productivity is continuing to improve, with a bumper haul of new products being launched and companies proving more successful in the final stages of clinical testing, according to a new analysis...Data from Thomson Reuters ...showed the number of innovative medicines, or new molecular entities, launched globally in 2014 hit a 17-year high of 46, up from 29 in 2013.

owner and operator (Rouzbeh Javaherian) of a Los Angeles pharmacy was sentenced...to 18 months in prison for his role in a fraud scheme involving the Medicare Part D prescription drug program.... In addition to imposing the prison term...ordered ..to pay $644,060 in restitution to Medicare.

first visible sign that the health care system in Puerto Rico was seriously in trouble was when a steady stream of doctors — more than 3,000 in five years — began to leave the island for more lucrative, less stressful jobs on the mainland…hefty cut to a popular Medicare program and grapples with an alarming shortage of Medicaid funds, its health care system is headed for an all-out crisis, which could further undermine the island’s gutted economy.

CVS Health has transformed its business model in recent years to give itself a more healthy image. Consumers can no longer buy tobacco products in its stores, and now, they can get health care services at the Minute Clinics　in 860 of its locations. Investors have liked this strategy, and the stock has been on a momentum run-up since October 2011, including a 16.8% gain so far in 2015.

Tyler Redilico, pharmacy student at Rutgers University's Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, gives advice to students heading to pharmacy school.