PHARMACIST STEVE

CMS Puts the Kibosh on Misleading Medicare Advantage Sales Pitches https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/101348 “Secret shoppers” found that 80% of agent calls with clients were inaccurate or insufficient After reviewing thousands of complaints about “confusing, misleading, and/or inaccurate” Medicare Advantage ads, and using “secret shoppers” to document deceptive telephone sales pitches, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services […]

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5 myths about using Suboxone to treat opiate addiction https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/5-myths-about-using-suboxone-to-treat-opiate-addiction-2018032014496 What is Suboxone and how does it work? Suboxone, a combination medication containing buprenorphine and naloxone, is one of the main medications used to treat opioid addiction. Using ‘medications for opioid use disorder’ is known as MOUD. Use of MOUD has been shown to lower […]

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Tricare is health insurance for  active/retired members of our armed services and many US government employees.  Tricare changed their PBM’s to Express Scripts and they sent out contracts that provided reimbursements to – at least – independent pharmacies that was BELOW THE COST OF WHAT PHARMACIES HAD TO PAY TO PURCHASE THE MEDICATION FROM THEIR […]

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per the CDC:  Between 1999 and 2020, according to the CDC, more than 564,000 people in the U.S. fatally overdosed from prescription and illicit opioids… what we do know, that starting in abt 2012, opiate Rxs started to decline each year going forward.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if they put the PER-CENT of the OD’s […]

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what I find interesting in this court issue is…  what they are talking about is “off-label” prescribing… in which day in and day out… off label prescribing is a significant percent of all prescriptions filled. But “they” seemed to dance around and side-step around the very issue of off-label prescribing. Off labeling prescribing typically has […]

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Pharmacist sued for confiscating patient’s prescription https://www.pharmacytoday.org/article/S1042-0991(20)30963-4/fulltext#relatedArticles Judicial opinions can be frustrating when the judge authoring the opinion has not provided sufficient factual information. That is particularly true of this month’s case. The court’s description of the facts may lead one to believe, and actually hope, that an important fact has been left out of […]

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Thumbs Down for Genetic Test for Opioid Use Disorder, FDA Advisors Say False positives, false negatives remain a concern https://www.medpagetoday.com/painmanagement/opioids/101359 An FDA advisory committee on Thursday voted strongly against AvertD, a prescription genetic risk assessment tool for opioid use disorder (OUD). In an 11-2 decision, the Clinical Chemistry and Clinical Toxicology Devices Advisory Committee said […]

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We intentionally avoided the first mRNA vaccines and got the J&J/Jansen original vaccine and booster.  This most recent booster they are PUSHING is abt 50% of the original COVID-19 vaccine and other parts are suppose to be effective on the COVID-19 variations of BA.4 & BA.5 and the clinical trial consisted on it being test […]

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Notice in SECOND GRAPH – post 2016 CDC opiate dosing guidelines OD’s from illegal drugs ( Illegal Fentanyl, Cocaine, Heroin, Meth & other stimulants ) where HIGHER in 2021 Illegal fentanyl significantly so  … whereas, Rx opiates remained fairly CONSTANT. Since both pharma opiate products and prescribed opiate Rxs were declining…  does this suggest that […]

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