Good Press

The New York Times has a good article on the expanded role and opportunity for pharmacists to take in patients' health care. Not only is this good press for the pharmacy profession, but it can serve to inspire you to start or expand new areas in your practice. For example,

The idea of using pharmacists in this way began to gain popularity in 2006 when someMedicare plans started covering medication therapy management programs, paying $1 to $2 a minute to pharmacists to review patients’ medicines with them; this year, about one in four people covered by Medicare Part D prescription drug plans will be eligible, according to agency estimates. For example, a Medicare Part D plan covered Ms. Gelinas’s medication management session at Barney’s pharmacy.

More employers and insurers also pay for pharmacists to advise patients, a role that the new health care law encourages with potential grants for such programs. In Wisconsin, for example, community pharmacists and some health plans have banded together to create a joint program, the Wisconsin Pharmacy Quality Collaborative, to standardize medication therapy management and ensure quality care.

Meanwhile Humana, which first paid for pharmacists to work with Medicare patients, expanded its coverage a few years ago. About a third of the 62,000 pharmacies in its network offer these services, and the insurer says it is studying whether a pharmacist seeing a patient in person has more impact than a phone call.

New CVS Controversy

Connecticut's Attorney General is investigating CVS' threat to drop a drug discount program because state law requires the lowest drug prices be for the state's Medicaid program.

[Attorney General Richard] Blumenthal, in cooperation with Department of Consumer Protection commissioner Jerry Farrell, Jr., has sent CVS Caremark a subpoena to explain why providing the discounts to the state Medicaid program would result in termination of its Health Savings Pass program in Connecticut and other information. The deadline for compliance is July 9.

In response to the matter, CVS Caremark said that it intends to "fully comply with all applicable legal requirements in this matter" and "will fully cooperate with the Attorney General's investigation."

Mississippi Court Ruling

Here is a story from Mississippi regarding Medicaid rates for pharmacists.

Mississippi Medicaid officials should have asked the Legislature for approval before tinkering with a law that would change reimbursements for pharmacists, the state Supreme Court has ruled.

The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a chancery judge's ruling that the Division of Medicaid had no authority to change how pharmacists were paid to fill prescriptions for people enrolled in the program.

Justice Randy Pierce, writing Thursday for the Supreme Court, said while the courts usually bow to agencies on issues or rules and regulations, Medicaid officials acted outside their authority.