Flu season is coming: Be ready to immunize!

The upcoming flu season looks like it’s gonna be a doozy — Australia (which gets it first) is calling it “particularly unusual,” “off the charts,” and a “horror season.”

Now is when you need your APhA immunization certificate. It means you’re giving your patients the best possible advice and treatment, and it helps you differentiate yourself.

GPhA is offering “APhA’s Pharmacy-Based Immunization Delivery: A Certificate Program for Pharmacists” on Sunday, August 4, from 8:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. in the GPhA classroom (6065 Barfield Road, Sandy Springs [map]).

This is always one of our hottest courses, so you’ll want to register quickly!

Opioid trial filings are full of jaw-dropping messages

“It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are. . .”

Hoo, boy. That quote is a snippet from one e-mail disclosed at the massive opioid trial about to begin in Ohio. (It happens to come from an exchange between a Mallinckrodt manager and a KeySource Medical exec.)

Read on, MacDuff….

Forgotten but not gone

The measles outbreak continues, now spreading to Ohio and Alaska.

Marijuana doesn’t replace painkillers

There had been hope that marijuana might be able to take the place of opioids, especially for people with chronic pain. Unfortunately, a new study finds that legalization hasn’t affected the opioid epidemic one way or the other.

Elsewhere: Beware that gene test

So say physicians groups in Britain, worried that people are getting incorrect information about the genes and mutations they carry.

One patient was scheduled for preventive breast-removal surgery after a consumer genetic test suggested she had a BRCA mutation. The surgery was called off at the last moment when an [National Health Service] laboratory revealed the result to be a false positive.

The long read: A scammer’s tale

“Health Insurers Make It Easy for Scammers to Steal Millions“: how personal trainer David Williams was able to fraudulently bill insurance companies for millions, even after they caught him.

One would think obtaining an NPI, with its stamp of legitimacy, would entail at least some basic vetting. But Williams discovered and exploited an astonishing loophole: Medicare doesn’t check NPI applications for accuracy — a process that should take mere minutes or, if automated, a millisecond.

It’s actually funny in a way, and chock full of facepalm moments.

The mammoth health insurers reacted with sloth-like urgency to the
warnings. Their correspondence shows an almost palpable disinterest in
taking decisive action — even while acknowledging Williams was
fraudulently billing them.

It’s worth reading the whole story just so you can say, “You’re kidding” over and over.