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Hospitals and health systems are building and expanding their own specialty pharmacies, and with good reason, according to several veterans of specialty rollouts...more than 75% of hospitals with at least 600 beds operate a specialty pharmacy, allowing them to directly prescribe patients critical medications for various chronic and often life-threatening diseases...An in-house specialty pharmacy provides many financial and clinical advantages over external specialty pharmacies for both patients and providers...significant roadblocks, and time and effort needed, to successfully launch a specialty pharmacy...READ MORE

Pharmacist remuneration models in ever-evolving healthcare settings must be examined if global health is to be supported...“A common concern among pharmacy associations worldwide is the long-term financial viability of professional services delivered by pharmacists. These concerns are first and foremost triggered by the impacts of continued price and margin cuts in dispensing of medicines and the non-allocation of funding in many settings for extended professional services and social care,”...“A successful remuneration model is one that promotes sustainable delivery of professional services. These should be integrated into broader health system strategies and, therefore, funding plans...READ MORE

A group of pharmacies and pharmacy organizations urged the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to formally recognize and promote medical at home pharmacy services for long-term care —particularly in the wake of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic...“With medical at home pharmacy services being needed now more than ever due to the coronavirus public health emergency, long-term care pharmacy stakeholders are urging the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to formally recognize and promote these services to help improve value-based patient care, increase savings, and ensure pharmacy providers are fairly and properly reimbursed,”...READ MORE

The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently released its employment data for 2019...our annual Drug Channels analysis of pharmacist salaries and employment...Average base salaries were about $125,000, though there was substantial variation across practice settings...Total pharmacist employment grew in 2019...the share of pharmacists who work at hospitals reached a new high...the number of pharmacists working in retail settings decreased. The challenges facing the retail pharmacy industry...are now showing up in the employment data...READ MORE

October is American Pharmacists Month. This celebration—recognizing pharmacists’ contributions to health care and all they do for their communities—includes Women Pharmacist Day (October 12); Pharmacy Week (October 18-24), acknowledging the invaluable contributions of pharmacists and technicians to patient care; and Pharmacy Technician Day (October 20)...Pharmacists are busier than ever with flu season and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, making it particularly important this year to take the time to celebrate and acknowledge our pharmacy staff’s contributions...Let’s take a look at a few ways that pharmacists are celebrating the value of the profession this month...READ MORE

A federal appeals court has ruled the Trump administration can install nearly 30% cuts to the 340B drug discount program...The ruling...is the latest legal setback for hospitals that have been vociferously fighting cuts the Department of Health and Human Services announced back in 2017...340B requires pharmaceutical manufacturers to deliver discounts to safety net hospitals in exchange for participation in Medicaid. A hospital will pay typically between 20% and 50% below the average sales price for the covered drugs...HHS sought to address a payment gap between 340B and Medicare Part B, which reimburses providers for drugs administered in a physician's office such as chemotherapy. There was a 25% and 55% gap between the price for a 340B drug and on Medicare Part B...So HHS administered a 28.5% cut in the 2018 hospital payment rule. The agency also included the cuts in the 2019 payment rule...Three hospital groups sued to stop the cut, arguing that HHS exceeded its federal authority to adjust the rates to the program...READ MORE

Professional burnout among pharmacists, already a growing concern in the United States, could be exacerbated by the coronavirus disease 2019 crisis. The current pandemic strains pharmacy capacity and exposes persistent underlying problems, according to 3 experts on pharmacy burnout...A national survey of more than 4700 pharmacist concluded that, although more than half (54.2%) of respondents reported meaningful work, 32% and 33% also said they felt “a lot” or “totally” emotionally and physically exhausted. Community pharmacists demonstrated higher rates of work exhaustion and interpersonal disengagement, as well as lower levels of professional fulfillment, compared with those practicing in hospitals and other work settings...READ MORE

Goals to support the transformation of the pharmacy profession around the world are launched today by FIP...The FIP Development Goals build on 13 Pharmaceutical Workforce Development Goals for pharmacy education developed by the federation in 2016. Additions have been made to these 13 goals and eight new goals have been developed, providing a total of 21 goals relevant to fields of practice and science as well as to workforce and education...READ MORE

The new goals cover:

• Medicines expertise
• People-centred care
• Communicable diseases
• Antimicrobial stewardship
• Access to medicines, devices & services
• Patient safety
• Digital health
• Sustainability in pharmacy

A new report from the hospital industry predicts half of all U.S. hospitals will be operating in the red by the end of the year unless more federal relief is approved...The report...prepared on behalf of the American Hospital Association, paints a grim picture of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on hospital operating margins...Hospital margins could sink to negative 7% in the second half of 2020, and half of all hospitals are likely to operate with a negative margin...Hospitals were slammed financially by low patient volume and cancellation of elective procedures to preserve capacity to combat COVID-19...Normally, hospitals overall operate with a 3.5% operating margin. But margins are expected to drop to negative 3% in the second quarter of this year...That drop would have been negative 15% without funding from Congress, which gave providers $175 billion a few months ago...READ MORE

Pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, and other pharmacy staff felt overtaxed even before the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic hit, according to findings from the 2019 National Pharmacist Workforce Study. The survey results showed that 69% of full-time pharmacists reported that their workload “increased” or “greatly increased” compared with the prior year...Although the profession is much more racially and gender diverse than in previous years, pharmacy staff reported age, race, and gender discrimination...Among full-time, actively practicing pharmacists, 71% rated their workload level at their primary place of employment as “high” or “excessively high” in 2019, compared with 66% and 68% of full-time pharmacists in 2014 and 2009, respectively...READ MORE