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Menasha has created a solution to educate pharmacists about front-of-store items that can not only provide better care for patients with chronic conditions and improve adherence, but also encourage basket-building among patients…Menasha’s Paul Murphy, senior director of retail sales and new business development,…bridge the merchandising strategy gap between pharmacists and front-of-store, which can help improve care. (video)

Jessica Kerr, PharmD, CDE, and assistant department chair at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville discusses counseling points for patients taking oral non-insulin diabetes medication (video)

Considering that a pharmacist’s mistake may cost a patient’s life, one class at Auburn University’s Harrison School of Pharmacy prepares pharmacy students for the gravity of their actions…. Foundations of Pharmacy course for incoming students has included a mock trial… Begin imagining yourselves in the chair as the defendant in the case, a pharmacist who has practiced for some time [and who] made an error….

Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services…issued guidance to all Medicare Part D plan sponsors regarding the Part D program's "any willing pharmacy" requirement…To comply with the AWP requirement,.. all…plans must have posted standard contracting terms and conditions… This new guidance should help reduce the likelihood of repeating the debacle of early 2015 that affected approximately 400,000 Medicare beneficiaries…

Starting Oct. 1, Tricare beneficiaries with long-term prescriptions for brand-name　medications to treat chronic conditions will need to fill them by mail or through a military pharmacy…will not apply to prescriptions for generic drugs, for drugs prescribed to treat acute illnesses and for prescriptions covered by other medical insurance,…the government pays 32 percent less for brand-name maintenance medications filled by mail or through military pharmacies than at retail stores...

To cure Maddie’s strep throat in time for her birthday party, all the little girl needs is some medicine and encouragement from her pharmacist in the children’s book Maddie Visits the Pharmacist… Author Donna Keissami, PharmD …life-long dream to write a children’s story. She was …inspired to write the story so that she could read it to her 2-year-old son..

10 best-selling brand-name drugs have generated $48.5 billion in sales this year through June 2015,…gross sales from the following 10 drugs comprise 43% of the nearly $112.5 billion in total drug sales generated by the 100 best-selling drugs..

1. Humira (Abbott) - $8.6 billion
2. Abilify (Otsuka) - $7.2 billion
3. Enbrel (Amgen) - $6.1 billion
4. Crestor (AstraZeneca) - $6.1 billion
5. Lantus Solostar (Sanofi-Aventis) - $5 billion
6. Sovaldi (Gilead Sciences) - $4.9 billion
7. Advair Diskus (GlaxoSmithKline) - $4.8 billion
8. Nexium (AstraZeneca) - $4.7 billion
9. Januvia (Merck) – $3.8 billion
10. Lyrica (Pfizer) - $3.4 billion

Leading up to NACDS Total Store Expo, Drug Store News had an opportunity to sit down with Tom O’Donnell, VP federal government affairs at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, to discuss pharmacist provider status and the latest pro-pharmacy legislative initiatives in the U.S. House and Senate.

"If you weren’t a pharmacist, what would you be doing?" I get tons of diverse responses from faces that light up when they talk about it…Pharmacists are in a great position to reinvent themselves because they have developed the following skills over time that are useful in many career fields:

1. Management skills
2. Finance skills
3. Mentoring skills
4. Multitasking and efficiency skills
5. Communication skills

Pharmacy is one of the foundational pillars of modern medicine,..community pharmacy is now at a crossroads…revenues are capped, competition is more intense and pharmacies are increasingly expected to play a stronger role in managing chronic conditions…The debate on the sustainability of community pharmacy is not a new one… Five forces will profoundly shape the future of community pharmacy…

1. Squeeze on health care budgets
2. Intensifying competition
3. Transformation of the supply chain
4. Emergence of new alternative channels
5. Demand for convenience and expertise

To survive…consider these two strategies:

1. Improve efficiency of supply
2. Become the first port of call in the health care system