Generic substitution: An opportunity to educate consumers
August 15th 2010In a recent survey by Medco Health Solutions Inc., only 66% of 1,092 patients with insurance surveyed "agreed that a generic drug is the same as the brand-name medication - many patients are still not comfortable using a generic and others still consider brand-name drugs to be superior."
Keeping pharmacy staff: Best practices
August 15th 2010With many pharmacists approaching retirement, positions are opening up. For professionals tasked with greater responsibility and longer working hours, greener pastures have an undeniable appeal. In this business climate, how can employers hold onto their pharmacy professionals?
Protect skin from sun damage: Educate patients
August 15th 2010Pharmacists are in a good position to tell patients that sand, water, snow, and clouds reflect and intensify the sun's rays, causing unsuspected sun damage, even in shade, and that protecting skin from sun damage should be incorporated into a daily routine.
Prescriptions for pharmacy survival may be a bitter pill
August 15th 2010Most of us probably didn't pay a lot of attention to business majors when we were in college. Unfortunately, the business majors have far more influence over the practice of pharmacy today than pharmacists do, and it's going to be up to them to find a way out of the pickle our profession finds itself in.
CER: Separating fact from fiction
August 15th 2010The 2,400-page healthcare reform bill included language establishing the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute, a group grounded in the tenets of comparative effectiveness research. Its mission is significant, but whether it has the power to effect change remains to be seen.
PPACA creates approval pathway for follow-on biologics
August 15th 2010Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) creates an abbreviated approval pathway for biological products that are demonstrated to be ?highly similar? (biosimilar) to or ?interchangeable? with an FDA-approved biological product, only time will tell how long it will take for these biosimilars to reach the marketplace.
Recent low back pain guidelines offer similar advice
July 20th 2010Recent clinical practice guidelines offer similar recommendations for assessing and managing low back pain, and clinicians can improve patient care by adopting these recommendations, according to a review published in the June issue of The Spine Journal, reported HealthDay News.
Fluzone High-Dose vaccine covered under Medicare Part B
July 20th 2010Written confirmation is now available from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services indicating that Fluzone High-Dose (Sanofi Pasteur) influenza virus vaccine for patients 65 years or older is a benefit covered by Medicare Part B and will be reimbursed for the upcoming 2010?11 influenza season.
CMS favors continued local pharmacy distribution of diabetes-testing supplies to seniors
July 20th 2010The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a proposed regulation on June 25 that would exempt community pharmacies from the upcoming bidding process for Medicare Part B diabetes-testing supplies, along with instructions that exempt most independent community pharmacies from accreditation requirements.
Updated recommendations for endometriosis released
July 20th 2010Women who suffer from endometriosis-related pain should be treated first with conservative, nonsurgical approaches and then with more invasive options if pain does not resolve, and with hysterectomy only as a last resort, according to a practice bulletin issued by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and published in the July issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology, reported HealthDay News.
Cardiology clinicians neglect to determine patient use of nutraceuticals and OTC agents
July 20th 2010The use of nutraceuticals and nonprescription over-the-counter (OTC) drugs may be high; however, the use of these agents may largely be ignored by cardiovascular clinicians, according to research published in the July 6 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Folic acid, vitamin B12 do not reduce vascular events
July 20th 2010Supplementation with folic acid and vitamin B12 over an extended period does not have a beneficial effect on vascular outcomes in individuals who have had a myocardial infarction, but it also poses no excess cancer risk, according to a study in the June 23/30 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, HealthDay News reported.
FDA panel votes to keep rosiglitazone on market, but wants label changes
July 20th 2010An FDA advisory panel voted 20?12 to recommend that the agency allow rosiglitazone (Avandia, GlaxoSmithKline) to remain on the market. However, most panelists want to see tougher warnings on the diabetes drug?s label, according to various media reports.