In the first of a two-part series, leaders of industry associations present their expectations for pharmacy operators for this year. The views of other organizations will appear in the next issue of Chain Drug Review. The date January 1 can have varying meanings for people. It’s the first day of a new year, of course.
Try as I might, I’m not much help to one of my kids when it comes to trading Pokémon cards (I can’t pronounce half of the names of the characters and long for the simplicity of baseball cards.) But watching the kids’ bartering reminds me of the basics of real negotiations — he wants a
New, exciting trends are emerging in community pharmacy practice, but what’s past is still prologue. Sal D’Angelo, a past president of the National Community Pharmacists Association/National Association of Retail Druggists, was the first person I heard say, “Get into politics or get out of pharmacy.” Sal spoke those words a long time ago, and he
Tune-ups. Spring cleaning. Check-ups. However tedious it can be, maintenance is a part of life. We do what we can (most of us do, anyway) to keep things moving as smoothly as possible, triaging as we go to stay on track. The Medicare Part D benefit has been in effect for around 16 years now.
One positive result of the coronavirus pandemic is that it has forever changed the consumer’s view of pharmacy. Of course, the evolving perception of the role of the pharmacist was already very much in progress. But the pandemic propelled it forward in ways that will have some radical effects on the business model of community
This time last year, COVID-19 vaccines felt to many of us like a rather distant prospect. Community pharmacy teams were in the thick of offering home deliveries to patients, working with their drive-thru and curbside services, and compounding hand sanitizer for first responders and patients. Many were also gearing up their COVID-19 testing and scheduling
On January 10, 2020, cheers erupted in the National Community Pharmacists Association’s headquarters when we learned the U.S. Supreme Court had decided to hear Rutledge v. Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, a case to determine whether ERISA preempts a state law regulating pharmacy benefit managers. NCPA has been fighting to rein in PBMs for years, and
The more than 20,000 community pharmacies in the United States serve as a patient safety net for their communities during normal times and during times of emergencies. Hurricanes Sandy, Michael and Katrina. Tornadoes. Floods in the South and Midwest. Wildfires in California. The coronavirus we’re currently facing has been a bit different from some of
One thing that can be said about the state of prescription medications in 2019 is that the pharmacy payment model is complex, convoluted and confusing. That’s how I began this column last year. And although some progress has been made in moving the model toward a system that better serves patients, that sentence still does
Titration. In chemistry, it’s adding a reactant to a solution until a chemical reaction is achieved. The titration process might take numerous drops of reactant before its concentration is high enough to observe a noticeable change. That chemical reaction is an apropos analogy for the current misaligned pharmacy payment model and its pathway to change.
Editor’s note: This was part of CDR’s 2019 Pharmacy Outlook in the January 7 issue. One thing that can be said about the state of prescription medications in 2019 is that the pharmacy payment model is complex, convoluted and confusing. Over $400 billion dollars are spent on prescription drugs, yet finding someone in the distribution
NEW YORK — Physicians Robin Warren and Barry Marshall were practically laughed out of health care in 1982 when they suggested that a type of bacteria might be causing stomach ulcers. It took more than a decade before their theory that treating ulcers with antibiotics to kill H. pylori bacteria was validated, and it radically
Community pharmacy owners occupy a critical position in the pharmacy marketplace and, even more importantly, as health care providers in communities across the country. Most stakeholders in the profession understand the vital marketplace check and balance that independent businesses provide. If only two or three megachain drug stores existed, negotiations with payers would look very
For many pharmacists, provider status is the Holy Grail — seemingly in range yet still agonizingly beyond their grasp. While some pharmacists already provide clinical services to patients — from immunizations to medication therapy and chronic disease management to health coaching and point-of-care testing — a reliable, third-party compensation model for those services has yet
