Celebrating the evolving role of pharmacists and recognizing their work to improve health outcomes.
Last Chance…for Live NRx SP 39 Webinar
Hey, you! Don’t miss an opportunity to engage with product experts and your peers. Hear specifics on what, how, and why features were changed and improved. Plus…there’s Q&A at the end. Bring your questions!
Can’t attend live? A recording will be posted on the Hub. Not registered for the Hub yet? Click here.
Industry News: Court Allows UnitedHealthcare-Change Healthcare Merger
On September 19, a federal judge refused to block UnitedHealthcare's $13.8 billion bid for Change Healthcare, rejecting the U.S. Department of Justice challenge alleging the deal creates a monopoly for key insurance claims processing technology and gives UnitedHealthcare too much data from rival insurers.
NCPA publicly called for the merger to be blocked in 2021, saying it would create an unfair competitive advantage for a company that is already dominant. In response to the ruling, NCPA CEO Doug Hoey said, “The acquisition of Change Healthcare will give it [UnitedHealth] a massive advantage over its competitors, and it will create an irresistible incentive for the insurance company to use patient data to steer business to its own pharmacy, and away from local, small-business pharmacies.”
Thousands of independent pharmacies are poised to be dropped from the Express Scripts (ESI) TRICARE network, possibly as soon as October 24, 2022, in a move advocates say could leave patients in rural areas with few options to get prescriptions filled. APhA, ASCP, NASPA, NCPA, SCPC, and over 40 state pharmacy associations have urged the Defense Health Agency and several members of Congress to amend its newest $4 billion contract with the large vertically merged PBM to maintain these military families access to their trusted community pharmacists.
The CDC recommended updated COVID-19 boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for people 12 and older and from Moderna for people 18 and older. The new boosters are bivalent vaccines, which means they target both the most recent Omicron subvariants, as well as the original SARS-CoV-2 strain. The bivalent boosters are the only ones authorized for people 12 and older.
Pfizer plans to ask for FDA approval this fall for the first respiratory syncytial virus vaccine after clinical trials showed it to be 85.7% effective in preventing severe disease among adults 60 and older. Currently, there isn't an authorized vaccine or treatment for RSV, a common virus that causes cold-like symptoms but can be deadly for infants and the elderly. In infants, RSV is the most common cause for bronchitis and pneumonia. Other drugmakers involved in the race to develop a vaccine include GSK, Johnson & Johnson, and Moderna.
CMS: Enforcement Discretion Relating to Certain Pharmacy Billing
Just like most of the U.S. workforce, the LTC industry is experiencing staff shortages. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows long-term care facilities have lost 400,000 employees since the beginning of the pandemic. But those who occupy these settings account for approximately 30% of COVID-19 deaths.
Question: How do we effectively vaccinate our most vulnerable population despite LTC staff shortages?
Answer: Outside immunizers!
Challenge: Vaccinators must be able to bill directly and receive direct reimbursement from the Medicare program.
CMS exercised enforcement discretion allowing Medicare-enrolled immunizers – including pharmacies – to bill directly and receive direct reimbursement from the Medicare program for vaccinating Medicare SNF residents with the seasonal influenza vaccine and pneumococcal vaccine (including for vaccine administration and product) whether these vaccines are co-administered with a COVID-19 vaccine or if they are administered separately.
Important: Enforcement discretion expires with the public health emergency declaration.
New Integra X Files Episode: “Vaccines – Prepare Today and Grow Tomorrow”
PrimeCare® customers, tune in as Integra X Files host Jim McDonald sits down with RedSail’s own Ed Vess, Director of Pharmacy Professional Affairs, and Emily Powers, Pharm.D., President of Medicine Express Pharmacy, to discuss long-term care pharmacy growth with vaccine administration, caring for communities, and how you can prepare today.
Don’t miss out on the conversations that will help to reshape the future of long-term care pharmacy.
Keeping your software up to date is a vital part of making sure you have the tools you need to succeed. Check out the top three enhancements noted by our product experts.
File Maintenance Scheduler improvements: ‒ Added optional notification of files exceeding specified physical size to alert administrator via prompt to contact Customer Support to expand the files or purge and compress the records. ‒ Added “Transaction Journal” to make it easier to compress and store old files that exceed the recommended size, improving overall system performance.
“Last Checkout Date” added to Patient Rx Profile, Rx Summary, and CycleRx Worksheet, so you can see if an Rx was picked up on time, which helps manage medication nonadherence.
Ability to “Confirm Lot and Expiration Date” when Rx is in L&D queue, so the expiration date on the Drug Record matches the date on the stock bottle.
Want to see a complete list of what’s new in SP 39? Click here.
