Content about Pharmacist Society Top Story

May 21, 2012
Pharmacists key to collaborative care model

It's getting progressively easier for pharmacy to prove its worth.

May 14, 2012
Pharmacy ratchets up pressure on PBMs

Community pharmacy’s high-stakes pushback against the powerful pharmacy benefit management lobby continues.

May 7, 2012
Answering the Express Scripts challenge

Walgreens just took another leap forward in its drive to become America’s “first choice for health and daily living” and “a centerpiece in improving patients’ overall health.”

May 1, 2012
Pharmacy's challenge: Vision and reality

Innovate or stagnate into irrelevance. That’s the message chain pharmacy leaders had for their colleagues at last week’s National Association of Chain Drug Stores’ 2012 Annual Meeting in Palm Beach, Fla.

April 24, 2012
Walgreens caters to customers' specific healthcare needs with 'Find Your Pharmacist'

Walgreens is enhancing community pharmacy by allowing customers to select a pharmacist based on their healthcare needs through a new online tool.

April 23, 2012
Rx for a global safety net

In practical everyday terms, does it matter to the community or health system pharmacist that the Food and Drug Administration is forging ties with other agencies worldwide and becoming more international in its outlook and focus? You bet.

April 16, 2012
Drug disposal: The other side of pharmacy

Earth Day is April 22. So it's as good a time as any to look at one aspect of community pharmacy that gets far less attention than such issues as managed care reimbursements or medication therapy management, but nonetheless is a key service provided by some pharmacists and a benefit to communities and the environment.

April 9, 2012
Squeezing water from a stone

How do you squeeze water from a stone? That seems to be the goal of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in its long quest to cut prescription reimbursements for Medicaid patients by setting new, tighter payment caps for the community pharmacies that dispense those medicines.

April 2, 2012
Feds green-light ESI-Medco deal. Now what?

“Straight over the cliff.” That may be the destination for many independent pharmacies now that the Federal Trade Commission has unconditionally approved the controversial merger of the nation’s second- and third-largest pharmacy benefit managers, a top pharmacy leader warned.

March 26, 2012
RxImpact Day: Now it’s your turn

The fourth annual National Association of Chain Drug Stores RxImpact Day on Capitol Hill wrapped up March 22 on a high note. With pharmacists and pharmacy students from around the country able to secure more than 350 meetings with members of the U.S. House and Senate and their staffs last week, most lawmakers who serve on congressional committees with jurisdiction on healthcare issues got to hear pharmacy’s position on prescription reimbursements, fair payment for pharmacy services and the proposed merger of pharmacy benefit management giants Express Scripts and Medco.

March 19, 2012
The gender gap in Rx adherence: Can pharmacists bridge the divide?

Powerful pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions has just unveiled the results of a large-scale study that points out the critical role that pharmacist interventions play in the health and safety of women.

March 12, 2012
Solid job outlook for pharmacists

What factor, above all others, made you choose a career as a pharmacist? Whatever the reason, if you’re enrolled in pharmacy school or are recently graduated, congratulations. You picked a good time to become a pharmacist.

March 5, 2012
PBM drug diversion ad ‘a new low?’

Are pharmacists the weak link in the drug diversion chain? That’s what the pharmacy benefit management lobby seems to imply in a new and controversial ad campaign that questions whether community pharmacists are doing all they should to halt the illegal flow of narcotics from the legitimate pharmaceutical supply chain to the dealer on the street.

February 28, 2012
A campaign custom-made for pharmacy

About $290 billion a year. That’s what Americans’ rampant nonadherence to their prescription medication therapy is costing the country each year in medical bills and lost work, according to national estimates. So getting patients to stick with their drug regimens is a huge challenge, not only for pharmacists in all practice settings, but for the entire healthcare provider network and the U.S. economy.

February 21, 2012
Putting some teeth into MTM

Message to Congress: You’ve got to spend a little money to save a lot of it. Paying $100 million to the nation’s community pharmacists to provide comprehensive medication therapy management to more American seniors would save Medicare $1 billion or more. Spend $200 million and save $2 billion ... you get the picture.

February 13, 2012
Way beyond counting pills

Chances are, you didn’t enroll in pharmacy school to count out pills behind a counter. As part of the next generation of clinically driven PharmDs, you’re probably looking for a lot more.

February 7, 2012
Walgreens takes its lumps and moves on

Apparently, there’s life after Express Scripts.

January 30, 2012
Could PBM merger battle get any hotter?

Will the merger of Express Scripts and Medco go through? Not if pharmacy lobbyists can stop it. There’s nothing new about the fact that different industry groups connected with retail pharmacy or health care can hold strongly opposing views about what’s good or profitable for their own members. But for undisguised hostility and tit-for-tat charges and countercharges, nothing comes close to the long-running feud between independent pharmacy and the pharmacy benefits management industry.

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