GPhA needs your help

We’ve got an amazing bill in the legislature this year: HB233, which would ban PBM steering. That’s right: It would prevent PBMs from requiring or “incentivizing” patients to use PBM-owned pharmacies, or even promoting those pharmacies to patients.

Now we need your help.

Sign up to be part of a Pharmacist Advocacy Team. You’ll join our advocacy team and about a dozen other pharmacists at the Gold Dome to meet with legislators and explain why this bill is critical for patients. Our lobbyists do a great job, but nothing is more powerful than a roomful of constituents in white coats.

We’ve got three teams available. Please sign up for one of them — your voice is critical!

Georgia House committee votes to reduce step therapy

The bill would make it easier for physicians to get exceptions from insurance company “try and fail” requirements. Further…

The bill would require a health plan to grant or deny an exception to its drug protocols within 24 hours in an urgent health care situation, and in two business days for a non-urgent case.

And yes, GPhA supports this bill!

It’s Opposite Day*

Apparently it’s become harder for patients to get buprenorphine (to treat opioid-abuse disorders) than to get the opioids themselves.

From 2007 to 2018, Medicare part D patient access to buprenorphine fell from 89 percent in 2007 to 35 percent in 2018 […] In contrast, patients had a far easier path to opioids. During the same period, Medicare part D plan coverage of opioids jumped from 93 percent to 100 percent coverage, without restrictions, according to researchers.

* No it isn’t

The two faces of E-cigs

Electronic cigarettes: They’re a gateway to smoking.

No, they’re a way to quit smoking.

No, they’re a gateway.

No, they’re a tool for quitting.

Gateway!

Tool!

If you’re not sure which is correct, you’re not alone. It’s almost as if there’s nuance to the issue and not just a simple answer.

Medicare at 50?

Instead of “Medicare for All,” one U.S. senator wants to take a less-aggressive approach: Medicare at 50 because people over 50 tend to have higher medical bills and can struggle to afford insurance.

[The Congressional Budget Office] estimated that the premiums for the public plan would be about $7,600 annually — significantly lower than the average $15,300 premium on the Obamacare markets that a 64-year-old currently faces.

What’s notable about this bill is that it has broad bipartisan support: 69 percent of Republicans polled favor allowing Medicare buy-in at age 50 instead of waiting till age 64.

Speaking of Medicare….

We all know healthcare gets more expensive every year. Interesting note: Over the last 11 years, private insurance companies have seen costs go up 4.4% a year per enrollee, while Medicare’s costs only went up 2.4% per year, and Medicaid paid a mere 1.6% more each year.

Say what you want about the government buying $1,000 screwdrivers, but when it comes to healthcare it’s doing something right.

Ruining your dinner

So you go out for a nice steak dinner with a glass of wine, right? Bad idea. A new Dutch study says that getting too much protein from animals is tied to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. And that glass of wine? That can up your risk of breast cancer, the WHO reminds us.

Fine, fine, you say — you’ll take a Diet Coke instead. Not so fast. A new study out of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine* finds that diet sodas can increase the risk of stroke, especially in older women.

* Why did they name a medical facility after a physicist?

Be less abrasive

We’ve all been there — cuddling with a significant other who decides to play a little footsie… with feet that feel like sandpaper. Yeow! Fear not: Arm and Hammer is introducing Heels & Feet Moisturizer (“plus gentle exfoliators”). Coming to your pharmacy soon?