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US pharmacists moving abroad, beware. You may have to take a pay cut, considering that pharmacists in the United States tend to receive higher salaries than their counterparts in other countries...See how the United States ranks against some other high-paying countries for pharmacists below: (average salary)

• United States - $107,000 to $118,000
• Switzerland - $83,600
• Canada - $80,700
• United Kingdom - $57,000 to $53,300
• Germany - $44,800

The proportion of people reporting use of prescription opioids for reasons other than medical necessity fell between 2003 and 2013, but use disorders and overdose deaths increased…rate of nonmedical use of opioids – not using a prescription as directed, or using a prescription that was written for someone else – fell from 5.4 to 4.9 percent…the rate of use disorders rose from 0.6 to 0.9 percent… more patients are experiencing…progression from initial opioid use to frequent use…Drug overdose deaths involving prescription opioids increased from 4.5 to 7.8 per 100,000 people.. These numbers could come down if we reduce inappropriate opioid prescribing and use and develop new treatments for pain that are safer…

Marc O'Connor, chief operating officer of Curant Health, discusses methods Curant uses to maintain adherence to specialty drug regimens.

Nick Gentile, Director of State Grassroots Advocacy and Political Action for ASHP, discusses how compounding laws vary from state to state.

Indian drug retailers shut up shop for the day on Wednesday to protest against the country's growing online pharmacy industry, and threatened to close indefinitely if the federal government did not shut down e-pharmacies…nationwide protest was widely supported, with as many as 850,000 chemists closing their doors, leaving patients waiting in long queues at any pharmacies that were open…Drug retailers are worried…"It is a matter of our livelihoods, we must be prepared for a fight," said pharmacist Satish Vij, who traveled from northern Haryana state to take part in a protest in New Delhi, where about 1,000 people, mostly pharmacists, wore black arm bands, held placards and shouted slogans against e-pharmacies.

Without more transparency on how such financial decisions are made…Americans may be doomed to see more generics zoom up in price… under the terms of my insurance with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Rhode Island, it will cost me $85.54. That’s a 232% price increase for…a drug that has been on the market for about 90 years… Americans spend significantly more for prescription medications than do citizens of any other developed nation. We do so directly, through higher prescription costs, and indirectly, as high drug costs drive up our insurance premiums and our taxes, via higher Medicaid and Medicare costs…negotiations between the industry and insurers feature "no transparency"…The bad news? The situation could get worse, and affect more drugs, more insurance companies and more consumers, as consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry reduces the number of potential rivals in the generic drug field.

Joe Moose, the 2015 Willard B. Simmons Independent Pharmacist of the Year winner..The independent pharmacist and co-owner of Moose’s Pharmacy in Concord, N.C., was honored at the convention’s first general session…with the award…One of Moose’s notable achievements is his role as the lead community pharmacy coordinator for Community Care of North Carolina, which came about as the result of his involvement in a $15 million grant from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, which supports pilot programs aimed at improving outcomes and lowering costs…Joe Moose is at the forefront of efforts to make independent community pharmacies an integral part of a more coordinated and efficient health care delivery system…

…independent community pharmacies are essential to patients and particularly those in underserved inner city and rural areas…These innovative small business owners are defining the future of pharmacy… the challenges of declining, even negative, revenue from prescription drug reimbursement…underscores the urgency with which community pharmacy owners must address two areas.

1. improve patient adherence to make your pharmacy indispensable to payers who are under increasing pressure to demonstrate success in that area.
2. take advantage of every opportunity to diversify pharmacy revenue streams beyond prescription drug payments.

…mass merchandiser pharmacies offer opportunities to provide patient care that may not be available to those in hospitals or smaller retail pharmacies…gives you a huge patient population to tap into…you really have a great opportunity to impact the lives of those customers…This setting is ideal for pharmacists who truly enjoy interacting with patients and being a resource for health information…we can walk the grocery department with our diabetic patients and discuss the impact their diet has on their blood sugar…mass merchandiser provides a holistic approach to the practice of pharmacy and overall health care…Do not think of a career with a mass merchandiser as a production facility or assembly line meant to mass-produce prescriptions…Remember that each prescription is tied to a person, not a number or a process.

QS/1 this week launched SharpRx...pharmacy management software…brings touchscreen capability and an intuitive design and layout…SharpRx gives small chain and independent pharmacies a more efficient way to fill prescriptions and bill third-party insurance, in turn enabling faster customer service…allowing pharmacists to quickly navigate through the system…to do everyday tasks as quickly as possible…