Category:

Walgreens Boots Alliance and Rite Aid on Monday morning extended their previously announced definitive merger agreement under which Walgreens Boots Alliance will acquire all outstanding shares of Rite Aid...The retail pharmacy operations also restructured a new deal that would value Rite Aid at between about $6.8 billion and $7.4 billion, depending on required store divestitures, down from an initial acquisition cost of $9.4 billion...Under the terms of the amendment, the parties have agreed to reduce the price for each share of Rite Aid common stock to be paid by Walgreens Boots Alliance...price will be a maximum of $7 per share and a minimum of $6.50 per share...Walgreens Boots Alliance will be required to divest up to 1,200 Rite Aid stores and certain additional related assets if required to obtain regulatory approval...

A former Lincoln County commissioner was sentenced Friday to one-to-four years in prison for defrauding insurance companies...Adam Katschke...previously pleaded guilty to felony insurance and Medicaid fraud in the case...Katschke, the head pharmacist and owner of Meadow Valley Pharmacy in Caliente, defrauded insurance companies...by billing for large amounts of pharmaceutical prescriptions that were rarely provided as billed to the patients or prescribed by a physician...The sentencing...ordered Katschke to pay $1.5 million in restitution...The defendant stole a million and a half dollars from taxpayers through Medicaid, a program designed to provide care for those in need, not line the pockets of fraudsters…

The Neighbourhood Pharmacy Association of Canada...applauded the federal government's Task Force on Marijuana Legalization and Regulation for recognizing the need to preserve the system of medical cannabis separate from the recreational system...the Task Force clearly noted Neighbourhood Pharmacies' proposition that medical cannabis is a serious drug and that Canadians expect that strength and packaging standards applied to prescription medications be applied to cannabis...We're looking forward to meeting with provincial pharmacy regulatory authorities, the pharmacy community and lawmakers to shape retail rules...We will continue to advocate for patient centric regulations that bring those using medical cannabis into the circle of care…

Naloxone is now available without a prescription at all CVS Pharmacy locations in Nevada...(CVS) stated it established a standing order with physicians in the Sliver State that allows CVS Pharmacy to expand access to the medication across the state...Naloxone is a safe and effective antidote to opioid overdoses and by expanding access to this medication in our Nevada pharmacies by the use of a physician's standing order for patients without a prescription…We are dedicated to helping the communities we serve address and prevent drug abuse and we are expanding access to naloxone to give more people a chance to get the help they need for recovery...CVS Health now dispenses naloxone in 37 states.

A little more than one week following its reintroduction in the Senate, provider status legislation is again being entertained in the House...the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas Enhancement Act (H.R.592)...will make it easier for Medicare patients in underserved communities to receive care...The...Act would allow Medicare beneficiaries to receive basic care such as immunizations, diabetes management, blood pressure screenings and routine checks from pharmacists. The bill reached impressive levels of bipartisan support… There is currently no avenue for Medicare to directly reimburse pharmacists for providing this care...The work already is underway to build on the momentum that was started in the last Congress, to accelerate the campaign to enhance the quality, accessibility and affordability of patient care through pharmacist-provided services...Pharmacists are highly-accessible, clinically-trained medication experts who can improve health outcomes and reduce overall costs…We hope the common-sense, bicameral, bipartisan legislation, which also generated a lot of support in the previous Congress, can pass both chambers and make it to President Trump’s desk for his signature...

The National Community Pharmacists Associatio...reached out to Republican congressional leaders to provide the community pharmacist perspective on repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act and potential Medicaid changes...Specifically, NCPA recommended any repeal and replacement of ACA include the following provisions:

• Preserve prescription drug coverage as an essential benefit to help reduce overall health costs;
• Require a robust pharmacy network that includes meaningful access to retail pharmacies, including independent pharmacies, for patients to fill their prescriptions and promote proper adherence;
• Maintain current definition for Average Manufacturer Price that is used to determine Medicaid reimbursements;
• Retain sections of the ACA that were dedicated to improving Medicare Part D medication therapy management programs, including an annual comprehensive medications review, and build upon it to further integrate pharmacists into the health care delivery system; and
• Keep transparency provisions requiring pharmacy benefit managers serving exchange plans and Medicare Part D to disclose to HHS the generic dispensing rate for retail and mail order pharmacies, the amount of the rebates collected, the amount passed onto the health plan and the total difference between what the PBM charged the plan and what it paid out to pharmacies

In the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, the Tribune tested 255 pharmacies to see how often stores would dispense dangerous drug pairs without warning patients. Fifty-two percent of the pharmacies sold the medications without mentioning the potential interaction, striking evidence of an industry-wide failure that places millions of consumers at risk...CVS...had the highest failure rate of any chain in the Tribune tests, dispensing the medications with no warning 63 percent of the time. Walgreens...had the lowest failure rate at 30 percent — but that's still missing nearly 1 in 3 interactions... There is a very high sense of urgency to pursue this issue and get to the root cause...test after test, other pharmacists dispensed dangerous drug pairs at a fast-food pace, with little attention paid to customers. They failed to catch combinations that could trigger a stroke, result in kidney failure, deprive the body of oxygen or lead to unexpected pregnancy with a risk of birth defects...The Tribune study...exposes fundamental flaws in the pharmacy industry. Safety laws are not being followed, computer alert systems designed to flag drug interactions either don't work or are ignored, and some pharmacies emphasize fast service over patient safety. Several chain pharmacists, in interviews, described assembly-line conditions in which staff hurried to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day.

...Dr. Henri Wetselaar...his medical assistant (David Litwin) and a pharmacist (Jason Smith)...are accused of funneling large quantities of pills onto the streets of Las Vegas through an illegal prescription drug ring...the trial...has provided a window into the scope of the federal government’s crackdown on prescription drug abuse in Southern Nevada...One of the government’s star witnesses is a drug dealer who testified this week about an arrangement she had with Wetselaar and Litwin, who saw clients out of her home twice a week. Carolyn Allen said she would refer clients to Wetselaar, instruct them to complain about back pain, and provide them with the cash to pay for the prescription. Clients would return to her with the prescriptions...she would take the prescriptions to Lam’s Pharmacy, where Smith was the manager. She said Lam’s Pharmacy maintained an entire book dedicated only to her clients. Allen said her clients were prescribed — among other drugs — oxycodone, hydrocodone, Soma and Xanax.

Community pharmacist sentenced for dispensing the wrong medicine spoke of ‘cramped working’ conditions and problem of similar packaging...An “overworked” community pharmacist, who pleaded guilty to dispensing the wrong drug to a patient who later died, has been sentenced to four months imprisonment suspended for two years...Martin White of Belfast Road, Muckamore in Northern Ireland, mistakenly dispensed propranolol instead of prednisolone, having told investigators that the two packages were “side by side on the shelf and have similar branding”...White admitted at an earlier hearing...to an offence under section 64 of the Medicines Act 1968, that he had “supplied a medicinal product in pursuance of a prescription given by a practitioner, which was not of the nature or quality specified”, to the prejudice of Ethna Walsh...(her) death has had a devastating effect on her family and said the damage and injury caused by the pharmacist could not be higher...The pharmacist’s degree of culpability was the result of “poor professional performance, but not professional misconduct”...adding that there was “no evidence of intentional negligence”...given the cumulated effect of White’s guilty plea, previous good character, loss of reputation and career and permanent financial loss, (Judge Gordon Kerr) said he did not feel an immediate custodial sentence was necessary...

I review our latest estimates on pharmacy economics and margins. The data reveal that independent pharmacy owners are starting to perform poorly. In 2015, the average pharmacist owning a single pharmacy earned about $200,000. It’s the second year in which the average owner’s compensation declined. The number of independent pharmacies and gross margins also are trending downwards...independent pharmacies are under-performing with generic substitution…

SIX OBSERVATIONS ON THE 2015 DATA

Overall independent pharmacy profit margins have remained stable.

Independent pharmacies’ prescription profit margins are trending downward.

Independent pharmacies’ gross profit per prescription was stable.

Independent pharmacies have lower generic dispensing rates.

The average pharmacist owning a single pharmacy earned about $200,000 in 2016—down for the second year.