NBC News reached out to all 50 state pharmacy boards, which oversee mail-order pharmacies, and the vast majority don’t have specific rules about how to ship medication, saying it’s up to the pharmacy to ensure it’s done safely.
There is a publication called https://www.usp.org/ United States Pharmacopeia that has been around for abt 200 yrs and within it is described the storage requirements for all medications, including most all OTC meds… all Rx meds will have a exact F/C range and OTC may just state “store at room temperature”. The Pharma, drug wholesaler, Pharmacy are legally required to meet those storage temps while the medications are in their possession. Once the pharmacy hands a package containing medications – to a delivery service (USPS, USP, FedEx)… the legal obligation to maintain those storage temperature requirements – basically “flies out the window”..
The representative of Express Scripts – Wendy Barnes – the President of HOME DELIVERY for Express Scripts… I will presume that she is not a Pharmacist…. so Express Scripts is putting forth a person who according to her LinkedIN page has a BS in Biochemistry and a MBA. https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendy-barnes-6bb15639/ So saving ONE DOLLAR on the not using temp sensor in the shipping package. I just wonder how much Sophia Dean’s insurance company had to pay out for the feeding tube and tube feedings and hospitalization costs… because Express Scripts was more concern about “pinching pennies” that favored their bottom line.
The fact that they got an exception to fill Sophia’s medication at the local pharmacy – notice that they use a INDEPENDENT PHARMACY – suggests that those other costs to the insurance company for hospitalization and related tube feeding costs WERE SUBSTANTIAL.
It does not surprise me that the board of Pharmacy shirk their study and their primary charge of protecting public safety in regards medications. I suspect that since there was nothing involving the potential of diversion of controlled substances… it is not the board of Pharmacy’s concern.
What was not addressed in the article is that Express Scripts is/was primarily a PBM ( Prescription Benefit Manager) whose primary function is to process Rx claims from community pharmacies on behalf of a insurance company, but apparently they have taken advantage of their position to expand their business plan into the mail order prescription business…. and went to the insurance company and told them they could cut a certain percent of medication cost if they could “force” their employees to use Express Scripts’ mail order facility… What the employer didn’t understand that these PBM’s typically keep the lion’s share of what is saved by Express Scripts mail order pharmacy … goes into Express Scripts’ bottom line.
Here is just ONE OF MANY such lawsuits https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/03/21/anthem-sues-express-scripts-over-prescription-drug-pricing/ and this law suit was not over just “pennies” Anthem seeks $15 billion in damages for uncompetitive pharmacy pricing from Dec. 1, 2015 through 2020. I used this “express scripts sued by insurance company over rebates” for a web search and got PAGES of responses of many entities suing Express Scripts over them pocketing money that they were suppose to pay the entity they had a contract with.
Filed under: General Problems
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