Chain Pharmacy

RxPatrol, an information clearinghouse operated by Purdue Pharma, has teamed up with the National Community Pharmacists Association to offer a 10-minute training video on crime-prevention measures for pharmacy staff.

Respondents to this year's business outlook survey are generally upbeat about the business their pharmacies are doing and their prospects for the coming year.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Office of the Inspector General of the federal Department of Health and Human Services are going after perpetrators of medical identity theft as part of a broader effort to reform healthcare.

The retail pharmacist who runs a pharmacy inside a big-box store can improve departmental operations by understanding the point of view of the retail store manager. Although pharmacist and manager have different focuses and priorities, they can work together to improve delivery of services when they understand each other's needs.

Retail pharmacy managers are discovering that many third-party administrators do not agree that their inventory information approval systems meet compliance requirements set by the Internal Revenue Service for customers' use of flexible spending accounts.

More than 23 million Americans, close to 8 percent of the population, have diabetes. For drugstores, the medical nature of their retail business makes them the outlet of choice for shoppers purchasing diabetes products. Retail pharmacists may choose to maximize patient awareness by placing their diabetes-care display and educational literature near the pharmacy counter.

Confronted with these three common scenarios in your daily practice of pharmacy, what would you do?

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) may recommend that healthcare workers, including pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, be transferred from positions where they handle hazardous drugs if the workers are trying to conceive, are pregnant, and/or breastfeeding.

In the prescription drug market, discriminatory pricing is common for independent community pharmacies and their patients. This fall, a Federal District Court in New York will consider a critical case: Drug Mart Pharmacy Corp. et a. v. American Home Products Corp. et al. The outcome of the case may determine whether discriminatory pricing techniques are illegal.

Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Express Scripts Inc., and The St. Louis College of Pharmacy are giving 35 high school students their first look at pharmacy careers in the BESt Summer Pharmacy Institute program.

Schnucks Markets plans to get customers into its pharmacy departments with the addition of EyeSite vision-screening kiosks. Thirty kiosks were recently added to its grocery stores in the St. Louis area.

Instead of giving out cards that reduce the copay of a prescription, why not just decrease the price per bottle of medication?

With the subject of healthcare reform on the front burner in Washington and across the country, Drug Topics invited members of its Frontline editorial advisory board to share their thoughts. A selection of their responses is presented here.

A second round of revised quality standards for heparin became effective recently, the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention has announced.

The CEO and COO of American Associated Pharmacies, the product of the merger between Associated Pharmacies and United Drugs, talk about the new pharmacy cooperative and the future of community pharmacies.

Hospitals and health systems have taken the lead in expanding the role of pharmacy technicians. "The better educated techs are, the more they can support pharmacists," says Mary Mohr, RPh, MS, of Clarian Health.

Each year, pharmacists who offer special services are recognized by their peers and wholesalers through nominations for Drug Topics' annual Top Independent Pharmacists awards in categories pertaining to service, competition, crisis response, and merchandising/promotion. This year's awards honor pharmacists in Washington State, North Carolina, Illinois, and New York.

Everyone seems to realize that when the lady being a pain in the neck carries a Gucci handbag, she's someone who helps pay the pharmacy's bills. Not so many people seem to realize that this is equally true of the lady carrying the Medicaid card.

Financial planning for pharmacists requires a basic understanding of types of financial professionals, fee structures, and values.

The FDA recently alerted pharmacists to medication error reports about mefloquine (Lariam) prescriptions calling for 250 mg daily rather than the recommended dose of 250 mg weekly for malaria prophylaxis.

The FDA can require risk evaluation and mitigation strategies for certain prescription drugs and biological products, to ensure that the benefits of such products outweigh the risks. The effect of REMS ripples down through the supply chain to affect how pharmacies dispense medication.

When manufacture of biogenerics is a legal reality, brand manufacturers will still retain a strong market share for several years.

The FDA has announced the availability of the first draft guidance for industry on Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategies.

CVS recently celebrated the grand opening of its 7,000th store in Little Canada, Minn. Continue reading for the full story.

On October 1, the 7,000th Walgreens store opened in Brooklyn, N.Y., amid festivities that included free health screenings and speeches from Walgreens CEO Greg Wasson and Borough President Marty Golden.

Pharmacy groups have filed three lawsuits that argue that California, New York, and Washington have not met their legal requirements to assure Medicaid patients receive access and quality care at least equal to patients in the general public.

Walgreens recently launched an initiative for 90-day prescriptions that promotes delivery of maintenance and chronic care medication through its national network of more than 7,000 pharmacies and employer worksite centers.

The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) is urging the IRS to quickly act on flexible spending account (FSA) regulations that are disrupting pharmacies? FSA debit card transactions.

HealthTrans, a healthcare management solutions company, recently announced changes it made to ensure market readiness for changes to Average Wholesale Prices (AWP). HealthTrans successfully transitioned clients Sept. 16,according to a statement to Drug Topics, and is now effectively processing claims based on Wholesale Acquisition Cost (WAC).

Community pharmacies and patients suffering the ill effects of a new flexible spending account (FSA) regulation could get some relief under two proposals the National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) presented to the U.S. Department of Treasury in a letter Wednesday.