Drug Companies Use Captive Pharmacies

So the center should discontinue this service, if possible, as it is affecting the center’s overall profitability. If it cannot discontinue the service due to government regulations, it can outsource the medications for the service. The outsourcing may help in reducing the variable overheads.

"In the past two decades or so, health care has been commercialized as never before, and professionalism in medicine seems to be giving way to entrepreneurialism," commented Arnold S. Relman, professor of medicine and social medicine at Harvard Medical School (Wekesser 66). This statement may have a great deal of bearing on reality. The tangled knot of insurers, physicians, drug companies, and hospitals that we call our health system are not as unselfish and focused on the patients' needs as people would like to think. Pharmaceutical companies are particularly ruthless, many of them spending millions of dollars per year to convince doctors to prescribe their drugs and to convince consumers that their specific brand of drug is needed in

Erica Lindsay, PharmD, MBA, JD, is a health care attorney practicing in the greater Chicagoland area. She has worked in pharmacy management and compliance for more than 15 years. Dr. Lindsay consults clients through complex pharmacy regulations and guidelines, including 340B, Medicare and Medicaid billing, and HIPAA compliance. She is on faculty of PharmCon providing instruction on pharmacy legal and regulatory issues. Dr. Lindsay is active in various organizations including the American Bar Association where she is Vice of the Nursing and Allied Healthcare Professionals Task Force and members of the Health Care Compliance Association, Cook County Bar Association, and the Chicago Bar Association. She is a graduate of Florida A&M University

The current debate over the Mylan Company’s near monopoly of the epinephrine market through its EpiPen shows what can happen without monopoly regulation. While the cost to produce an Epipen is around $30, the price to the consumer is around $300 each. The economic implications for a family that needs to keep the device on hand to save a life can be excessively high, the emotional results of not having one when you need one are debilitating. This monopoly is further enhanced by state-enforced regulations requiring that schools keep EpiPens in stock and the, so-called, EpiPen law enacted in 2013, which leave little incentive for other pharmaceutical companies to develop their own technology for fast-acting emergency devices. (Bartolone, 2016) Breaking Mylan’s monopoly will not only lead to new product development but lower prices for consumers for a life-saving delivery

The twenty-first century has seen pharmaceutical companies grow in unprecedented size and strength. Due to the unprecedented growth the larger pharmaceutical companies have gained leverage and power in the prescription drug industry, but they lack innovation to market and they seek ways to help the business continue to increase its profits. The pharmaceutical industry was once ethically sound and was a valuable player in the development of human health. However, overtime with the lack of innovation pharmaceutical companies are becoming an unethical market that exploits patients, doctors and anyone else it can to increase its profitability. With eyes only on profitability this can create a hazard for patients because there

Everybody reaches out of pocket to pay for different prescription drugs. Parents for children, elderly for health conditions, and pet owners for pets, but there is one extensive concern; the price and outcomes. Transiently, it may be common for someone to come out of pocket for some prescriptions, but when people draw out of pocket every time just to pick up a prescription drug, it becomes annoying and upsetting. Pharmaceutical companies like CVS and Walgreens collect over $1,000,000 dollars just from gouging people for medications. According to David Belk (M.D.), Pharmacies buy medication in mass from pharmaceutical corporations and suppliers, then sell for a profit. What everyone is trying to ask the companies though is why. Why would a top-producing company like CVS or Walgreens sell expensive medications to a group of people like the elderly for profit?

Medicare, one of the greatest purchasing clients in the medication industry, is not lawfully allowed to bargain first hand with companies for lower medication costs or best possible price. (Kounang, 2015)

Morgan, S. G., & Daw, J. R. (2012, August). Canadian pharmacare: Looking back, looking forward. Healthcare Policy, 8(1), 14–16. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3430151/

Anyone who has purchased prescription medications has probably wondered why they cost so much, and rightfully so. Medication prices in the United States have been on a steady increase for decades, however, prices have been drastically increasing as of recent. Pharmaceutical companies have tried to justify these price increases due to the demand, the high cost of research, and the high costs of development and approval. Notwithstanding, the extent to which the prices have increased is not justifiable. Americans should be against these high medication prices and take action because pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of our healthcare system in order to capitalize from the sick. In order shed some light on this issue, the magnitude, scope, and consequences of these prices must be examined.

The difficulty with tracking and controlling drugs comes from the current laws. States have power over pharmacies, however, the FDA has power over the manufacturers of drugs. The new law, the Drug Quality and Security Act, also known as the track and trace system requires that all manufactures add serial numbers and electronic codes to their packages, so that they can be tracked as they move from the manufacturer to the pharmacist, and any steps in between. Now, large compounding pharmacies must register with the FDA, while smaller pharmacies can continue to operate under state laws and requirements. A major flaw found in the law was that the law does not require any company to register with the FDA, which forces the individual doctors and hospitals to make decisions of whether or not to purchase from FDA-registered companies or not (cite source).

The implementation of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) will propel changes that were on the horizon for pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries knew there was going to be some type of healthcare reform so they began to take the necessary precautions to prepare. The ACA had key provisions related to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry affecting Medicare and Medicaid. Legislation in the ACA will reduce cost for brand name prescriptions (Rx); this will reduce drug cost for patients, but increase rebates and discounts for pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms, therefore, imposing cost on the firms. The pharmaceutical and biotech industry was key in creating legislation for the ACA, according to CMS (2009), “despite

Pharmaceuticals in the United States have been on the rise for years and everyone is trying to find was to get cheaper medication. New generics, 4 dollar lists, and coupons have been a growing force in pharmacies in the past few years. Some might think, “There has to be laws against rising prices, right?” Well, sort of.

One of the underlying issues of rising costs lies in the hands-off role that the government is given in regards to the price-setting of drugs offered through prescription drug plans (PDPs). The Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement, and Modernization Act (MMA) of 2003 is the essential piece of legislation that created what Medicare Part D provisions (Frank & Newhouse, 2008) are in place currently. While this provision provides low-income older Americans with necessary medications, within the initial bill, the governmental program suffers a loss of autonomy. Under this bill, the government is barred from engaging in negotiations with pharmaceutical companies through the “noninterference” clause (Cubanski and Neuman, 2015). This prohibition

Thank you for your thoughts Danh. I am aware that Hy-Vee and Wal-Mart pharmacies offer a $4 generic list, but as a Hy-Vee pharmacy intern, I know that the list is limited. The patient does not benefit from such a promotion if their drug is not on the list. Hence, this common scenario is in conflict with the ethical principle of distributive justice. Additionally, I believe that pharmacists can only do so much in a given situation and the system for access to medications is disappointingly inadequate. Thus, I proposed the development of a centralized electronic system dedicated to maximizing access to medications for every patient.

The Pharmaceutical industry has been in the spotlight for decades due to the fact that they have a reputation for being unethical in its marketing strategies. In The Washington Post Shannon Brownlee (2008) states, “We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow.” This honorable statement is completely lost in today’s world of pharmaceutical marketing tactics. These tactics are often deceptive and biased. Big Pharma consistently forgets their moral purpose and focuses primarily on the almighty dollar. Big Pharma is working on restoring their reputation by reforming their ethical code of conduct.