Category:

• Safety Issues Related to Labeling, Packaging, and Nomenclature
• Safety Issues Associated With Order Communication and Documentation
• Problems Involving Drug Information, Patient Information, Patient Education, and Staff Education
• Safety Issues Related to Medical Devices and Equipment
• Other Discussion Items
• SMP’s Targeted Medication Safety Best Practices for Hospitals...READ MORE

The Department of Health and Human Services finalized a long-awaited rule that sets up a process to resolve disputes surrounding the controversial 340B drug discount program...The final rule...comes as several drugmakers have restricted access to drugs discounted under the program. The rule could weigh in on the center of the feud: contract pharmacies...The process will resolve claims by safety net hospitals and other entities in the 340B program that a drug company overcharged them. It also allows drug companies to appeal if a covered entity violated a part of the program such as getting duplicative discounts...READ MORE

A new Aetna pilot program aims to harness its parent company's pharmacy reach to help address members' social needs...Through the HealthTag initiative, CVS Health pharmacists and pharmacy employees are empowered to offer more personalized information when Aetna Medicaid members come to pick up prescriptions, providing the members with health information beyond how to take their medications appropriately...Inside the prescription bag, members are provided additional details on how to access community services to address social concerns like food, housing or transportation. The network of these organizations is backed by Unite Us, a social care coordination program...Aetna will pilot the program at CVS pharmacies in West Virginia and Louisiana...READ MORE

Amazon is getting more serious about pharmacy...This announcement is much less disruptive than it appears to be. Amazon is copying the GoodRx discount card model—including GoodRx’s partnership with Express Scripts. At the same time, Amazon is launching a mail pharmacy that will accept insurance and be in PBM pharmacy networks...Amazon’s actions are another negative headwind for retail pharmacies, but not a fatal blow to the system. Perhaps Amazon will one day become a true disrupter...Amazon Pharmacy operates as a home delivery pharmacy. It is built on the backbone of PillPack, which Amazon acquired for $700 million in 2018...Just like any other pharmacy, Amazon relies on your pharmacy benefit plan to determine your out-of-pocket expenses. Nothing magical here...READ MORE

Drug manufacturers have had little choice but to act on their own to identify and mitigate the impact of duplicate 340B discounts...Marcy Imada...director at Deloitte & Touche LLP... said preventing duplicate 340B discounts “has proven to be a challenging and long-standing problem for the industry, and in particular for manufacturers. There have been numerous government studies and recommendations provided over the years to try to address this duplicate discounts challenge.”...manufacturers have been left with little choice but to take “more proactive steps” and implement “new strategic initiatives,”... “At least a couple of manufacturers have communicated plans to limit sales at 340B discounted prices billed to a covered entity and shipped to 340B contract pharmacies,” she said...READ MORE

Sam’s Club this week added Nevada and seven other states to its free prescription drug pilot program available to those without insurance at select Sam’s Club Pharmacy locations. The Plus member benefit, which was launched this year, increases the number of free prescriptions available in 30-day supplies to Plus members...New medications available at no cost in the program are: Lisinopril ; Metformin; Sertraline; Montelukast; and Amlodipine...The new medications are in addition to the following that had been free already: Donepezil; Pioglitazone; Escitalopram; Finasteride; Vitamin D2 50,000 IU...READ MORE

Starting Friday, November 27, 2020, pharmacies must buy and sell only products with a required “product identifier” on their packages. This requirement is part of the phased-in implementation of the Drug Supply Chain Security Act of 2013, also known as the “track-and-trace” law. By Friday, dispensers should be familiar with this requirement and know what to do if a product identifier is not on the package when they receive products that require it. The product identifier is on most drug packages in both human-readable format and on a machine-readable 2D data matrix barcode...“The challenge for dispensers is that not all drug product packages are required to have a product identifier, and there is no central database to check if a product should have one,”...READ MORE

The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a proposed rule Thursday aimed at improving the electronic exchange of healthcare data among payers, providers and patients...The rule would require Medicaid, CHIP and QHP programs to build HL7 FHIR-based APIs to support data exchange and prior authorization. It also includes a proposed API standard for healthcare operations nationwide...The proposed rule seeks to enhance the patient access API by requiring the use of specific HL7 implementation guides by impacted payers...READ MORE

For our 2020 survey, we received 1037 responses from pharmacists. This year undoubtedly posed new challenges for pharmacy amid the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, and our findings underscore the effects...Compensation...pharmacists are still largely making close to what they made in previous years...41% said they received additional income in 2020. The highest earners reported an extra $15,000 or more on average, but most respondents reported between $1001 to $5000 in extra income...Stress and Workload...Management pressure, high work volume, endless amounts of paperwork––all of these are part of a pharmacist’s job...Compounded with the ongoing pandemic and high patient demand, it is no surprise that pharmacists are generally feeling more overwhelmed this year...survey results showed that pharmacists reported higher stress levels and increased workloads in 2020 compared with previous years. Seventy-three percent indicated increased stress levels in 2020 compared with 61% in 2019...READ MORE

NHS England is preparing for the huge task of delivering COVID-19 vaccines, including through community pharmacies...Delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine to the public will require the participation of “as many of the workforce who are trained in vaccination as possible” from community pharmacy...Jill Loader, deputy director of pharmacy commissioning at NHS England and NHS Improvement, said there were “a number of different ways community pharmacy can get involved” in the COVID-19 vaccine delivery programme, with some community pharmacies expected to be commissioned as a vaccination site through a locally enhanced service...“We anticipate that we are going to need to use as many of the workforce who are trained in vaccination as possible,” she said...READ MORE