Dueling Pharmacy Groups Launch Fresh Attacks at Each Other

The lobby group for pharmacy benefit managers is accusing community drug stores of using a double standard for attacking them while at the same time objecting to federal plans to collect drug-price data for Medicaid.
“Despite recent press revelations of its ‘top secret’ lobbying campaign to maintain the confidentiality of its own Medicaid pricing information the [...]

AARP Report Fuels Debate Over Drug Pricing; AHIP, PHRMA, NCPA And PCMA Join In

A new report by AARP’s Public Policy Institute, which concluded that prices for Medicare’s most commonly used brand-named drugs dramatically increased in 2009, has prompted debate among several players in the health care sector. An insurance industry source says AARP’s finding that drug prices increased by 8.3 percent in 2009 is [...]

Mail Order vs. Local Prescriptions

Mechanicsburg, Pa. – Some big health insurance companies favor using mail-order pharmacies because it saves the insurance company money. Some critics, however, say it’s limiting consumer choice.
If you want to speak with the corporate office at the Medicine Shoppe in Mechanicsburg, you’ll find him right behind the [...]

Drugstores, pharmacy-benefit managers vie for prescriptions

Bob Schreiber’s business in Morrisville, Burns Pharmacy, was briefly famous as the setting for a scene in Signs, the M. Night Shyamalan movie that depicts a scary alien invasion threatening a Bucks County farm family.Nearly a decade later, the disturbing threat to Schreiber and at least some of his customers isn’t an alien.
It’s the growing [...]

Community Pharmacists Seek Stricter Transparency Rules For PBMs In Exchanges

Community pharmacists are urging the Obama administration to impose tough transparency requirements on pharmacy benefit managers as it oversees the health reform law’s new insurance exchanges, saying disclosure requirements that the Office of Personnel Management has proposed for federal employees’ health plans should be used as a guide.
The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which represents PBMs, [...]

EHR Rules Loosen Requirements; Multi-Campus Hospitals Get One Payment

HHS made it easier for hospitals and doctors to receive incentive payments for using electronic health records by reducing the number of requirements they must meet to be considered “meaningful users” of EHR in a pair of rules released today. But hospital are disappointed that CMS will give a single base payment to hospitals with [...]

Pharmacist group calls on CMS to bolster e-prescribing safeguards in new ‘meaningful use’ rule

The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) is calling on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to enhance the patient safeguards in the “meaningful use” rule unveiled by the agency Tuesday.
Doctors, for instance, should be required to perform safety checks before receiving incentive payments for e-prescribing, the group said Tuesday. Additionally, PCMA President and [...]