Because smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and illness worldwide, most Medicine Shoppe and Medicap Pharmacy stores have pulled all tobacco and tobacco-related products from their shelves. Read More »

CVS Health's MinuteClinic announced Tuesday that it has surpassed 25 million patients since opening in 2000. Read More »

A report from Express Scripts released at its Outcomes Symposium Wednesday indicates that as medical costs have increased, the number of patients with annual medication costs amounting to $100,000 has tripled over the course of the previous year. Read More »

Five Medicare plans received Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) Quality Awards, the organization announced Tuesday. Read More »

Kathy Norris was recently promoted to become director of patient care services for BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy. Read More »

The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA) said Monday it applauds a decision by lawmakers to increase funding for pharmacist programs and professional services in the Sixth Community Pharmacy Agreement (6CPA).The decision increases funding from $600 million to $1.2 billion over the next five years. Read More »

In 2014 the North American pharmacy information system market carried a value of more than $1.3 billion and its value is expected to increase to more than $2 billion by 2019, MicroMarket Monitor report said Monday. Pharmacy Information Systems (PIS) is an application used by medication dispensaries to increase patient safety by helping decrease the amount of errors in the dispensing process. It also provides information about dosage times and limits for specific patients based on their age, we Read More »

CARE Pharmacies Cooperative Inc. and Aureus Health Services Inc. have formed a partnership to facilitate specialty pharmacy management, the companies announced Thursday. Read More »

Benzer Pharmacy, formerly known as Rx Care Pharmacy, was recently ranked 36th in the category of sales by dollar volume in the 2014 North America's Top 50 Drugstore Operators rankings.Benzer, a chain of independent retail pharmacies specializing in compound and specialty medications, has more than 40 locations throughout Florida, Michigan, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas. Read More »

Pharmacy Quality Solutions (PQS) is offering pharmacies a new tool to help achieve even greater medication adherence and patient safety for customers in government programs. The new system, the Electronic Quality Improvement Platform for Plans and Pharmacies (EQuIPP), will promote better sharing of drug-related performance metrics with community pharmacies. The program will make it possible for pharmacies to easily track medication performance against Medicare Part D Star rating measures. Read More »

McKesson Health Solutions unveiled the latest edition of InterQual, the company's flagship decision-support software and technology system, on Monday.      The 2015 edition includes 55 new and enhanced evidence-based clinical content areas and extensive updates, including the first admissions criteria to include comorbidities, criteria for 29 new specialty drugs and 33 new molecular diagnostic tests, as well as support for gene panels, among other features. Read More »

AB Acquisition LLC, parent company of Albertson’s LLC, New Albertson’s, Inc. and Safeway, Inc. announced last week that there Mark Panzer has been appointed as senior vice president of pharmacy, health and wellness. Read More »

Amgen last week announced the first results from its global Phase 2, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that assesses the efficiency and safety of AMG 334 for the prevention of episodic migraine. Read More »

Hikma Pharmaceuticals PLC today announced that Hikma’s founder and honorary life president, Samih Darwazah, passed away Friday at the age of 85. Read More »

65 percent of doctors surveyed said only some non-specialty drugstores could provide drugs Read More »

Thanks to the Affordable Care Act’s Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) Program, some 24 qualified nonprofit health insurance issuers have been created in 24 states using startup loans and solvency grants from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The goal of these so-called CO-OPs is to increase consumer choice and foster competition in the individual and small group health insurance markets -- two goals now being undermined by premium rate turmoil. Read More »

Ateb yesterday announced its continued relationship with the Pharmacy Quality Alliance (PQA) and the appointments of four Ateb pharmacists to PQA’s measure development teams and stakeholder advisory panels for 2015. Read More »

U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-MA) recently introduced a bill on Monday to improve federal oversight of the prescription-drug benefits available to federal workers, retirees and their families through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP). Read More »

Crystal Clear RX, a software company serving Colorado’s pharmacy benefits management (PBM) industry, offers a reliable pharmacy auditing system called ClaimWiseRX to make pharmacy auditing much easier. Read More »

Proxsys Rx, LLC, said on Tuesday that it has partnered with Catavolt, a mobile technology developer, to aid hospitals in integrating outpatient pharmacy services into the continuum of care. The integration would benefit patients and health care providers by developing a bedside discharge-delivery application within a handheld tablet. Read More »