- Drugstores galore: Another CVS being built on the Las Vegas Strip (vegasinc.com)
The drugstore arms race on the Strip is ratcheting up another notch...Workers are building a roughly 20,190-square-foot CVS store near the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, in front of Bally’s. The two-story property will have a pharmacy and is scheduled to open in May…It’s the latest Walgreens or CVS to land in the famed tourist-packed casino corridor, where the drugstores make big money — and pay big rents — selling medicine, food, alcohol and such Vegas-themed souvenirs as shot glasses, margarita cups, ash trays and gallon-sized flasks...This lucrative slice of commerce on the boulevard is only growing...CVS opened a store last year in the new three-story mall at Treasure Island and now has four outposts in the resort corridor, including the one at Bally’s.
- Getting the Pill Without a Doctor: The Revolution Begins (bloombergview.com)
Oregon is making hormonal birth control legally available without a doctor's prescription, and California is set to follow suit. This is great policy, and the rest of the country should follow this example...Before I explain why they should, we should dispense with the policy hopes that easier access to birth control won’t fulfill:
- It won’t end the political fight over the contraception mandate.
- It won’t end the political fights over abortion, either. Easier access to birth control is a great thing. But there is surprisingly weak evidence that making birth control easier to get substantially reduces abortion rates.
- It won’t save the health-care system any significant amount of money.
There are still very good reasons to make birth control available without a doctor visit, starting with the fact that women like it...Absent a compelling reason that women need to see a doctor, it should be as easy as possible for them to get any form of birth control they might like to have...Advocates for keeping doctors involved in dispensing birth control have historically used two arguments.
- The first is that the drugs have side effects -- which is true, but of course, also true of over-the-counter medications...
- The second argument is that we need to keep doctors involved so that women will keep coming to the gynecologist to get their annual exam and pap smear.
- Indiana bill encourages sale of meth-resistant PSE products (drugstorenews.com)
Community Pharmacies of Indiana...announced the organization's unanimous decision to support Senate Bill 80, also known as the Pharmacist Legitimization Bill...as a method to control the sale of pseudoephedrine products and decrease meth manufacturing in Indiana without requiring a prescription and unfairly penalizing law-abiding customers...Under the bill, cold medicines containing single-ingredient PSE, such as Sudafed, will remain available for behind-the-counter sales without a prescription. The bill would enable pharmacists to briefly consult with customers seeking products containing single-ingredient PSE, inquiring about symptoms and potentially recommending effective, non-prescription PSE products that contain meth-resistant safeguards, such as Nexafed and Zephrex-D…The bill would also grant pharmacists the legal protection to decline potentially illegitimate sales of PSE products that lack meth-resistant features where appropriate...Pharmacist Legitimization Bill represents common-sense legislation that balances efforts to help curtail the proliferation of meth labs throughout our state while also preserving the customer's ease-of-access to effective cold medicines for legitimate use without the burden of obtaining a prescription every time they have a head-cold…
- California Set To Allow Birth-Control Pills Without Prescription (losangeles.cbslocal.com)California Law To Allow Pharmacists To Prescribe Birth Control (npr.org)
California is set to become one of the first states where women can get birth control from a pharmacist without a prescription with the goal of reducing unwanted pregnancies...Proponents of the new law say it will give younger women easier access...But doctors like gynecologist Kathleen Valenton have concerns...“I think that’s very dangerous,” she said, since pharmacists cannot perform health screenings, including STD checks...Many of the details of the law are still being worked out in Sacramento. It is set to take effect in March.
- 5 Treacherous Problems with Fentanyl Patches (pharmacytimes.com)
Although using a patch formulation of fentanyl can have some advantages, here are 5 common problems I've encountered with it in my pharmacy practice:
- Fentanyl patches are extremely potent
- Lost or missing fentanyl patches should scare you
- Fentanyl patches are meant for chronic pain
- Fentanyl patches can cause delayed withdrawal symptoms
- Fentanyl patches get diverted
- Walgreens Tops Estimates as Prescriptions Make Up for Retail (bloomberg.com)
Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. beat analysts’ earnings estimates of fiscal first-quarter earnings estimates, as strong prescription drug trends made up for a retail slump that continues to affect the company...Walgreens drew in shoppers with a better experience and more high-end products after renovating its stores. In the U.S., the drugstore chain’s biggest market, same-store retail shrank fell 0.6 percent in the quarter ended Nov. 30 compared with a year before, Walgreens said in a statement Thursday. It’s a lackluster figure that hasn’t kept up with gains in the prescription drug dispensing business.
- drugstore sales were $20.4 billion, up 4.2 percent from a year ago.
- same-store sales rose 5.8 percent, with pharmacy sales gaining 9.3 percent and retail declining 0.6 percent, Walgreens said, “primarily due to a reduction in unprofitable promotions and the transitioning of seasonal items away from holiday decorations and toward higher quality, giftable items.”
- pharmacies filled 231 million prescriptions in the quarter, up 4.1 percent from a year ago.
- Total sales were $29 billion, up 48 percent, thanks to the merger of Walgreen Co. and Alliance Boots GmbH in Dec. 2014.
- The company raised the low end of its earnings guidance for fiscal year 2016 by 5 cents, to $4.30 to $4.55 per adjusted share.
“Any kind of vertical integration is good,” though Walgreens is focused on digesting its current acquisitions...In October, the company agreed to acquire Rite Aid Corp. for about $9.4 billion and expects the deal to close in the second half of 2016.
- Walgreens, CVS Want Doctors’ Medicare Pay To Vaccinate (forbes.com)Patient Access to Pharmacists’ Care Coalition (pharmacistscare.org)
As the nation’s retail pharmacies move deeper into the business of providing healthcare services, they now want pharmacists to be paid by Medicare to immunize the nation’s seniors....Under legislation that is gaining rare bipartisan support and momentum in the House and Senate, particularly for a Congressional health bill, pharmacists would be paid to administer vaccines under Medicare part B...The pharmacies have formed a coalition known as “The Patient Access to Pharmacists’ Care Coalition,” to push for the legislation, known as the Pharmacy and Medically Underserved Areas of Enhancement Act (S. 314/H.R. 592). The coalition includes retailers and grocery store chains with pharmacies such as Walgreens Boots Alliance , CVS Health, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Rite-Aid and Target...It could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to the drugstore industry given the growing business of providing vaccinations.
- Retail Pharmacist MTM Roles Supported by US House (pharmacytimes.com)
More than 40 members of the House of Representatives have expressed support for greater pharmacist roles in improvements made to Medicare Part D’s medication therapy management program...CMS announced plans to improve MTM with its Part D Enhanced MTM model in September 2015. The enhanced model aims to look at additional incentives and flexibilities to achieve the goals of the program...Some of those goals include increased communication with pharmacists, prescribers, and patients; improved patient knowledge; reduced medication problems; and improved compliance with medication protocols...The enhanced MTM model test will launch in January 2017...Some of the medication adherence concerns that the Congressional members noted were:
- Nonadherence costs the United States $290 billion annually and makes up 13% of total health care expenditures.
- Patients with several chronic conditions comprise two-thirds of all hospital admissions and are 100 times more likely to have a preventable admission.
- These patients with several chronic conditions visit many different physicians in a year and receive around 50 prescriptions annually on average.
- MTM is currently poorly integrated into health systems.
Congressional leaders called for retail pharmacists to be included in the enhanced MTM models that will be tested, citing how pharmacists have been shown to improve patient health, reduce costs through fewer hospitalizations and readmissions, and increase patient involvement in their own medication management...Our seniors deserve the most robust and effective MTM program possible—one that includes the utilization of the most trained and highly skilled providers medication management services: local retail community pharmacists...
- HHS And CVS Health Partner To Promote Consumer-Centered Preventive Services (healthaffairs.org)
The Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and CVS Health recently formed a public-private partnership. This partnership aims to increase awareness of the availability of convenient, consumer-centered, recommended preventive services using healthfinder.gov. Healthfinder.gov is a source of easy-to-use prevention and wellness information, designed using health literacy and usability principles...CVS Health, recognizing the important role of informing and engaging patients about preventive care...integrated the myhealthfinder API into the MinuteClinic website in a pilot project conducted jointly with the healthfinder.gov team at the ODPHP...we expect individuals to become more informed and active consumers of clinical preventive services...To extend the reach of federal programs that improve health literacy, and encourage prevention and healthy behaviors...the HHS and CVS Health collaboration could be a model for other retail clinics…Because of retail pharmacies’ consumer and convenience focus, and their important role in connecting patients to and sustaining their relationships with primary physicians, retail pharmacies add valuable perspective and insight to the assessment of preventive care.
- Oregon greenlights pharmacist-prescribed birth control (upi.com)How Oregon Pharmacists Are Prescribing Birth Control (pharmacytimes.com)
Pharmacists in Oregon are now permitted to prescribe birth control pills to qualifying women as part of a wave of new state laws for 2016...Oregon is the first U.S. state to put such a law into effect, with California reportedly looking to follow suit...A doctor's approval is no longer needed for a supply of pills, although experts urge women not to overlook preventative health care in the form of doctor visits...having birth control accessible through a pharmacist doesn't mean preventative health care isn't important...women over age 18 will still be required to fill out a health questionnaire trained pharmacists will use to determine whether to write a prescription. Pharmacists are reportedly still free to refuse prescriptions for religious reasons, but must refer a customer somewhere else.