Community Practice

With a boost from actress Suzanne Somers' new book extolling hormones as the fountain of youth, many compounders are cashing in on bioidentical hormone replacement therapy. But critics contend that such untested products put profits before patients.

A California researcher who likes crunching death certificate data has discovered that fatalities from prescription drugs spike at the beginning of the month, and he suggests that it's tied to pharmacist workload.

Already hurt by a drug company clampdown on supplies and a falling U.S. dollar that have raised prices to American consumers, Canadian mail-order pharmacies are bracing for a federal regulatory crackdown that they claim will force them to set up shop on friendlier shores.

A Philadelphia specialty pharmacy known for its hospice care has been selected to participate in one of nine contracts awarded through Medicare's new Chronic Care Improvement Program (CCIP) for fee-for-service beneficiaries.

California is debating the details of a state-sponsored prescription drug discount card set to launch next January. The state's Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, unveiled the California Pharmacy Assistance Program, dubbed Cal Rx, last month.

Low-income uninsured Americans will soon get the chance to save money on prescription drug purchases under a discount drug card program by 10 drugmakers announced last month.

When clinical pharmacists teamed up with hospitalists, patient stays were shorter and drug costs lower, according to a study conducted at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center in East Patchogue, N.Y., and presented at the 2004 annual meeting of the Society of Hospital Medicine in New Orleans.

At the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology held in San Diego, researchers reported improved results with certain types of leukemia. These outcomes were achieved by using higher drug dosages to treat early chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML), and equivalent results occurred with a more convenient subcutaneous, rather than intravenous, route for delivering a biologic for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL).

A 70-year-old Caucasian man, N.B., presents to your emergency department with dyspnea, peripheral edema, and weight gain. He had a myocardial infarction five years ago and has progressive congestive heart failure (HF) (NYHA Class IV stage D). Currently, BP = 90/60, HR = 78, labs normal except BUN = 48, SrCr = 2 mg/dl, B-type natriuretic peptide = 1100 pg/ml. Physical assessment shows bilateral rales and warm and wet skin turgor. Current medications: furosemide 40 mg q.d., ramipril (Altace, Aventis) 2.5 mg q.d., carvedilol (Coreg, GlaxoSmithKline) 12.5 mg b.i.d., metolazone 2.5 mg p.r.n., weight gain (not taken last month). To treat his acutely decompensated HF and pulmonary edema, his physician prescribes furosemide 40 mg IV x 1. She asks whether to add nesiritide (Natrecor, Scios) or nitroglycerin (NTG) infusion.

Relief is finally at hand for patients with leukemia or lymphoma who must undergo extremely high dose chemotherapy and radiation to prep for bone marrow transplant. A new agent will reduce their chances of developing mucositis-severe ulceration of the oral mucosa caused by the cancer treatments themselves.

Relief is finally at hand for patients with leukemia or lymphoma who must undergo extremely high dose chemotherapy and radiation to prep for bone marrow transplant. A new agent will reduce their chances of developing mucositis-severe ulceration of the oral mucosa caused by the cancer treatments themselves.

The United States Pharmacopeia has given Uncle Sam its final model guidelines of the therapeutic categories and drug classes insurers may use as a template to build their formularies under the Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Community pharmacies have answered the call to help the victims of the Dec. 26 tsunami that killed more than 150,000 people and devastated a vast crescent of coasts rimming the Indian Ocean.

Given their druthers, two-thirds of American women at risk of unintended pregnancy would be interested in being able to get contraceptives directly from their pharmacist without a prescription. Those figures come from a national survey sponsored by the Pharmacy Access Partnership.

A recent trend toward greater oversight of technicians continued last year as more state pharmacy boards acted to bring the pharmacist's chief helper into the regulatory fold, according to the 2005 National Association of Boards of Pharmacy Survey of Pharmacy Law.

Pharmacy groups that had been hoping the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) would set up each state as a separate Medicare prescription drug plan (PDP) region got half a loaf. The agency named 25 states as stand-alone areas, but the rest were grouped into nine regions to be served by plans offering the Rx benefit beginning January 2006.

While not as clever as the amusing Burma Shave signs, exit signs alerting drivers to nearby pharmacies may soon sprout up on America's roadways in states that adopt new regulations from the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA).

Americans who wouldn't think of buying a new car, DVD player, or cell phone without consulting Consumer Reports can now go on-line to check out the magazine's ratings on prescription drugs.

The decision by a county comptroller on Long Island to sponsor a prescription drug discount card open to all citizens has New York pharmacists worried that the program might spread nationwide and send the last cash-paying customers into extinction.

The equation is simple. If there are not enough homegrown pharmacists, and the demand for more cannot be reduced, then the solution is to look for foreign-trained pharmacists.

Community Care Rx (CCRx), the discount card created by the National Community Pharmacists Association, will pay pharmacists for medication therapy management services (MTMS) to help position the profession as a player when the Medicare prescription drug benefit comes on line in 2006.

In the belief that transparency creates competition and lowers costs, several states have created Web sites that post comparative retail drug prices. Consumer groups say this is a step in the right direction to make drugs more affordable, especially for the elderly and uninsured. But many pharmacists say it's a fool's errand by the states-prices change quickly and postings are rarely up to date. That leads to confusion and consumer anger more than to increased competition, say pharmacists.

A pharmacy in Philadelphia has carved out a niche by dispatching a staffer across the street a couple of times a day to deliver prescriptions to patients scheduled to be discharged from a behavioral health hospital in the City of Brotherly Love.

With the 2006 deadline looming to deliver useful patient drug information at the counter, the pharmacy profession has failed to meet the legal challenge laid down by the U.S. Congress, according to the Pharmaceutical Printed Literature Association (PPLA).

When an innovative pharmacist in Ohio wanted to impress movers and shakers, he brought out the experts-his diabetes patients-to tell the story of how clinical pharmacy services in a collaborative family practice have improved their care and lives.

A pharmacy in Philadelphia has carved out a niche by dispatching a staffer across the street a couple of times a day to deliver prescriptions to patients scheduled to be discharged from a behavioral health hospital in the City of Brotherly Love.

Pharmacy students who think retail is the setting for them but who would also like more postgraduate training are being offered a chance by a California company to become residents in a community pharmacy.

Busy behind the pharmacy counter, many pharmacists may think they can't enlist in the fight against increasingly bold and sophisticated counterfeiters, but there are ways they can make it tougher for fake medications to reach their patients, according to industry experts.