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Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services is reportedly proposing to ban Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes from owning or operating a laboratory for two years, along with revoking the license of Theranos' Newark, CA lab...Theranos had ten calendar days from receiving the notice to explain to CMS why the sanctions should not be imposed on Holmes and the company...The proposed sanctions stem from a number of key deficiencies CMS found in inspections last fall. Theranos had sent in a correction plan for the deficiencies but the regulator found it to be not credible.

As low-cost generics come to dominate retail dispensing activity, clinics have emerged as a way for drugstores and other retail pharmacy outlets to diversify into non-dispensing revenues...There are now about 2,000 retail clinics. Below, I examine the chains with the biggest market share: CVS Health, HEB, Kroger, Rite Aid, Target, Walgreens, and Walmart...In 2015, the number of clinics grew slowly. In 2016, I project another year of slow growth as the big players retrench...

1. CVS Health’s MinuteClinic remains the largest and fastest-growing retail clinic business, now operating more than half of all retail clinics.
2. Walgreens is the second-largest retail clinic operator, with more than 400 Healthcare Clinics (formerly Take Care clinics). The number of clinics in Walgreens retail stores declined in 2015.
3. Kroger has emerged as the third-largest retail clinic operator with its Little Clinic business, which operates inside nearly 200 Kroger, Dillon’s, Fry's, JayC, and King Soopers stores.
4. Rite Aid changed its clinic strategy with the 2014 acquisition of RediClinic. As of January 2016, Rite Aid operated 41 RediClinics....a further 35 retail locations.. in HEB grocery stores...At 14 Rite Aid locations, the company leases space to other clinic operators...
5. Walmart launched its own Care Clinics in 2014. There are now 17 Care Clinics in Walmart stores...Walmart also leases space to independently owned and operated Clinic at Walmart operators...operate inside 73 Walmart stores.

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices has approved the recommended adult immunization schedule for 2016. The recommendations are published as a clinical guideline in the Feb. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine...The researchers note that the major changes to the schedule relate to human papillomavirus, pneumococcal, and serogroup B meningococcal vaccines. The nine-valent HPV vaccine was added to the schedule, and can be used for routine vaccination against HPV for males and females. For immunocompetent adults aged 65 years and older, the vaccine interval for 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine followed by 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine was changed from "six to 12 months" to "at least one year." Immunocompromised adults, and those with anatomical or functional asplenia, cerebrospinal fluid leak, or cochlear implant, aged 19 years or older, should receive PPSV23 at least eight weeks after PCV13. All persons aged 10 years and older who are at increased risk for serogroup B meningococcal disease should have the MenB vaccine series.

The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion  and CVS Health recently formed a public-private partnership. This partnership aims to increase awareness of the availability of convenient, consumer-centered, recommended preventive services using healthfinder.gov. Healthfinder.gov is a source of easy-to-use prevention and wellness information, designed using health literacy and usability principles...CVS Health, recognizing the important role of informing and engaging patients about preventive care...integrated the myhealthfinder API into the MinuteClinic website in a pilot project conducted jointly with the healthfinder.gov team at the ODPHP...we expect individuals to become more informed and active consumers of clinical preventive services...To extend the reach of federal programs that improve health literacy, and encourage prevention and healthy behaviors...the HHS and CVS Health collaboration could be a model for other retail clinics…Because of retail pharmacies’ consumer and convenience focus, and their important role in connecting patients to and sustaining their relationships with primary physicians, retail pharmacies add valuable perspective and insight to the assessment of preventive care.

Daniel T. Abazia, PharmD, BCPS, discusses some of the non-pharmacologic treatment options that pharmacists can recommend to patients experiencing opioid-induced constipation.

Theranos Inc. filed a plan to U.S. regulators to fix serious deficiencies at the company’s blood-testing lab in Newark, California, as founder Elizabeth Holmes works to regain credibility for her struggling startup...The company submitted the proposed plan of correction...to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services...Theranos also confirmed the filing, though it didn’t release details of the plan...CMS said in late January that Theranos’s violations of federal regulations posed "immediate jeopardy" to patients’ health and safety...Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. and...Capital BlueCross have said they’re curtailing use of Theranos’s tests while the shortcomings identified by CMS are addressed. Theranos has hired a new lab director and said it’s working quickly to correct other problems, including personnel issues, along with the defects tied to blood testing...

McKesson Pharmacy Systems & Automation has released the McKesson Clinical Programs Solution, a new platform that enables pharmacists to build customized wellness programs...the Clinical Programs Solution also allows pharmacists to maintain vendor programs for patients with specific medical conditions and saves time and labor costs by automatically synchronizing the data of patients enrolled in a clinical program with McKesson’s EnterpriseRx pharmacy management system...The Clinical Programs Solution offers a wide range of program management capabilities, including a patient-centric view of a patient’s programs and information, real-time notification if a patient is eligible for a clinical program when a prescription is being filled with EnterpriseRx, and a central platform for pharmacies with multiple locations to manage all of their clinical programs.

MinuteClinic Retail clinics, long seen as an antidote to more expensive doctor offices and emergency rooms, may actually boost medical spending by leading consumers to get more care...Rather than substituting for a physician office visit or trip to the hospital, 58 percent of retail clinic visits for minor conditions represented a new use of medical services, according to the study...the journal Health Affairs. Those additional visits led to a modest increase in overall health care spending of $14 per person per year...This challenges the conventional wisdom that retail clinics save the health care system money...The study doesn’t contradict earlier research that found retail clinics provide care that costs 30 to 40 percent less than similar care provided at a physician’s office and that the treatment for routine illnesses was of similar quality. But it suggests those savings are more than offset by increased use of medical services...health plans and employers should carefully consider how they cover care at retail clinics...If the goal is to lower costs...then encouraging use of retail clinics may not be a successful strategy...

Walgreens...announced the launch of a new effort to combat drug abuse, introducing two programs that address contributors to the crisis.

1. ...Walgreens will install safe medication disposal kiosks in more than 500 drug stores in 39 states and Washington, D.C., primarily at locations open 24 hours. The program will make the disposal of medications — including opioids and other controlled substances — easier and more convenient while helping to reduce the misuse of medications and the rise in overdose deaths.
2. Walgreens also will make naloxone...available without a prescription at its pharmacies in 35 states and Washington, D.C., rolling out the program state-by-state throughout this year.

Federal inspectors will soon release details on problems at blood-testing facility...U.S. health inspectors have found serious deficiencies at Theranos Inc.’s laboratory in Northern California...The problems were found during an inspection by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the chief federal regulator of clinical labs, at the blood-testing company’s facility in Newark, Calif. Failing to fix the problems could put the Theranos lab at risk of suspension from the Medicare program...inspection results are expected to be publicly released soon...