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Tine Hansen-Turton, Executive Director of the Convenient Care Association, discusses the extent to which retail clinics have met her past expectations.

• What Will Be the Next Technology Disruption in Retail Clinics?
• How Will Opportunities for Retail Health Clinics Expand?
• What Opportunities Do NPs and PAs Have in Retail Settings Versus Other Settings?

Late last week, Walgreens Boots Alliance filed an 8-K with the full text of its merger agreement with Rite Aid….The document containing the Agreement and Plan of Merger weighs in at a hefty 137 pages. Below, I highlight four fun facts about the deal’s timing, its termination fees, and what the companies will do to achieve antitrust approval.

1. The deal must be completed before Halloween 2016.
2. If Rite Aid backs out of the deal, then it owes as much as $370 million to Walgreens Boots Alliance.
3. WBA could owe Rite Aid a termination fee as large as $650 million.
4. To get the deal approved, WBA is willing to dump as many as 1,000 stores.

You and your practice team could be spending several hundred hours on prescription renewals each year. What if you could get most of that time back while also ensuring your patients don’t run out of medications between appointments? Here’s a physician-proven solution that you can implement in your practice right away…Random prescription renewals have become so ingrained in office-based practices that you may not have even realized that it was an inefficient allocation of resources. But synchronizing prescription renewals—renewing all of a patient’s stable medications for 12-15 months—can save your practice time and money, so you can dedicate more time to directly caring for patients.

Follow these three steps to synchronize prescription renewals.

1. At a dedicated annual comprehensive care visit, renew all medications for chronic illness for the maximum duration allowed by state law.
2. Include instructions for the pharmacy on all prescription modifications and renewals as applicable.
3. Take the opportunity to review all of the patient’s prescriptions for chronic conditions when you receive a prescription renewal request.

CVS Health…announced that it is opening Hearing Centers in seven CVS/pharmacy stores in the Dallas and Cleveland markets and will be providing optical services at CVS/pharmacy in five store locations around the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. market…"Hearing and optical services are a great fit with the existing health offerings in our stores, including industry-leading pharmacy products and services, our MinuteClinic walk-in medical clinics and a comprehensive smoking cessation program,"… "By expanding our retail health offerings…we are providing customers a convenient, single destination on their path to better health."

Caremark, a division of CVS Health, won an incentive package Tuesday from Orange County (FL) to bring a pharmaceutical operation here next year that could create as many as 500 jobs…County commissioners approved the company's request in a 6-1 vote…Caremark plans to establish a support operation here for its pharmacies in the southeastern U.S…The jobs, including 100 pharmacists and 350 pharmacy techs, will pay an average annual salary of about $49,000, qualifying it for a "high-wage jobs" tax break…The Caremark proposal also will boost the county's tax roll by $18.7 million…Caremark would add 275 jobs by the end of next year and another 225 jobs in 2017…The company would be in line for $1.5 million in tax refunds from the state, or about $3,000 per job. The county would kick in up to $300,000.

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.’s deal to acquire Rite Aid Corp. is expected to draw antitrust scrutiny not only because the company would grow to 12,700 locations, but because of what goes on behind the scenes with drug payments…Federal Trade Commission…will look closely at whether the merging of the No. 1 and No. 3 pharmacy chains in the U.S. will lead to higher prices for prescription drugs...the FTC will probably review the approximately $9.4 billion deal market-by-market instead of on a national basis, since CVS, Walgreens, Wal-Mart and Rite Aid together control only about half of the U.S. retail pharmacy market...The rest is held by independent stores, smaller chains and mail-order companies. Walgreens is likely to sell or shutter some stores...

...House of Representatives’ Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health convened a hearing called "Examining Medicare Part D Medication Therapy Management Program."...aimed at figuring out the best ways to strengthen MTM model as the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid roll out an overhaul… Rite Aid’s director of field clinical services… spoke in favor of expanding MTM…and highlighted recent efforts...which include the introduction of a bill…the Medication Therapy Management Empowerment Act that would increase access to MTM for patients with such chronic conditions as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol and COPD…given community pharmacist’s unique role as an easily accessible healthcare provider, they could be at the center of the expansion of MTM programs.

Work to begin in early 2016…Walgreens is poised to roll out Epic EHRs (Care Everywhere) in its more than 400 healthcare clinics across the country…The Epic platform will replace Walgreens' own proprietary EHR…The goal…is to...enable more seamless communication with health systems and local providers, and gives us enhanced capabilities to deliver better health outcomes through greater care coordination and interoperability…our clinics play an increasingly important role in healthcare, supporting the healthcare system, provider practices and patients' medical homes, care coordination can be critical. This will benefit our patients, clinic providers and partners, and serves as an instrumental part of our strategic growth plan…

As part of its advocacy and community outreach efforts during American Pharmacists Month, the American Pharmacists Association is partnering with the co-chairs of the House Community Pharmacy Caucus, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, the National Community Pharmacists Association, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, and Walgreens to host the 3rd Annual Capitol Hill Health Fair on October 28. Flu shots and health screenings, including bone density, glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure, and body composition will be available to members of Congress, staff, and the general public in the Rayburn Foyer in the Rayburn House Office Building from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm.

Pharmacists from Walgreens and student pharmacists from:

• University of Maryland Eastern Shore School of Pharmacy
• University of Maryland School of Pharmacy
• Notre Dame of Maryland University School of Pharmacy
• Howard University College of Pharmacy
• Shenandoah University Bernard J. Dunn School of Pharmacy
• Virginia Commonwealth University School of Pharmacy

…retail giant…will offer free blood glucose, blood pressure and vision screenings along with product samples and health insurance information at more than 4,400 stores nationwide on Oct. 10… "We expect to set record-breaking numbers during this single day because we will have hundreds of thousands of both screenings and immunizations,"…we believe that during this health fair more than 3,000 Americans will learn that they may have diabetes, and another 7,000 will find out that they have high blood pressure."…."This is a continuation of our commitment to helping our customers live healthier lives,"…"We have a long history of making health care more affordable and accessible…