Scripted

A federal judge just made a major pro-pharmacist ruling in a class-action lawsuit brought by independent pharmacies, challenging CVS Caremark’s unfair PBM fees and arbitration practices. A group of pharmacists are currently in the process of trying a class action lawsuit, Osterhaus Pharmacy Inc. v CVS Health Corporation, against CVS CareMark. The potentially landmark case alleges antitrust violations, breaching good faith by manipulating fee metrics, and seeks remedies on behalf of pharmacists for unconscionable contracts and unpaid value for services provided. It’s a big deal. But there was a huge caveat: the pharmacy bringing forth the lawsuit had entered into a contract with CVS CareMark that contained an arbitration clause. This kind of clause in a contract requires parties to resolve disputes through closed-door arbitration instead of going to public court. Naturally, this kind of conflict resolution can benefit large corporations and shield them from liability. This was especially problematic in this case. CVS’s arbitration clause stated that their arbiter could even determine whether a claim was arbitrable AT ALL. In other words, the arbiter would have sole authority on whether these claims were even up for discussion. This could have been the death knell of this class action lawsuit. Fortunately, it wasn’t. Judge Tuchi stated that CVS’s delegation clause is “substantively unconscionable” (grossly unfair) and ruled it invalid. The court, not an arbitrator, will decide if the claims in this suit are subject to arbitration. This is likely not the outcome CVS CareMark hoped for, and further, opens the door for broader legal accountability and public scrutiny of CVS CareMark and the other big PBMs. Want to fight back against low reimbursement rates at your pharmacy? Bring medical billing to your pharmacy and ditch PBM's: scripted.co/pharmacists #LetUsPrescribe #PharmacyPaybackTime Source: https://lnkd.in/e4j7fi5w

Getting a CLIA waiver can unlock tons of revenue-generating testing options at your pharmacy. Need a waiver? It’s a few steps, but nothing too difficult. Unless you’re using Scripted, in which case, it’s 100% automated. Learn more about CLIA waivers in our ultimate guide: https://lnkd.in/eq5sxQUQ #LetUsPrescribe #pharmacistsprovidecare?

Here’s a huge concern about the future you may not have considered this week: an impending second Trump administration may have disastrous impacts on public health, pharmacy viability, and patient access to care (among other things). Let’s start with vaccines. In his 1939-style rally at Madison Square Garden on October 27, President-Elect Trump stated he’d let former competitor Robert F. Kennedy Jr (RFK) “go wild on health” if elected.1 It’s important to remember that RFK Jr. is an ardent vaccine skeptic who has tirelessly pushed pseudoscientific claims, including the repeatedly debunked claim that vaccines are linked to autism.2 In fact, a Trump campaign co-chair stated directly that RFK Jr. wants access to federal data on health to question the safety of vaccines.3 It’s easy to imagine how increased vaccine hesitancy and potential challenges to access to certain kinds of vaccinations could harm both your pharmacy’s bottom line and the patients you serve. But that’s tragically only the start. A second Trump administration is also highly likely to set the Affordable Care Act in its targets, which threatens your patients’ access to affordable healthcare and insurance.? Patients without access to insurance or care in general are obviously less likely to seek prescriptions. Like many other Americans, members of the Scripted team have struggled to process the results of this election. We pride ourselves on our diversity, being a team of immigrants, people of color, and LGBTQ+ people. If the Trump administration moves forward with some revisions to American health policy, health outcomes could likely get worse for both patients and pharmacists, perhaps in challenging-to-predict ways. Processing that reality could be painful; we deserve to mourn that fact. But we can’t mourn for too long. It’s now more important than ever to remain vigilant to threats to our ability to provide quality care to patients wherever those threats may arise and to build community power and awareness to counter those threats. Even if you’re limited in what you can do, stay committed to caring for your patients and the industry—if you don’t, we’re truly hopeless.

If cold and flu season makes your pharmacists want to ?? SCREAM ??, get Scripted and be a test-to-treat superhero for Halloween. Tons of vaccines and new tests don’t have to be scary: Scripted automates and simplifies everything from appointment booking to administration to marketing. (Trying to guess whatever the heck your patient’s costume is supposed to be is still on you, but check back next year, maybe we’ll figure that one out.) I’m scared of call-to-action URLs so I hope one doesn’t pop out AAHHHHHHHH https://lnkd.in/eiu6_BQK #LetUsPrescribe #pharmacistsprovidecare

What’s better than one PBM antitrust investigation..? TWO! That’s right: senators are now calling for the FTC to open YET ANOTHER antitrust investigation into the Big PBMs. This is coming hot on the heels of an absolutely bananas countersuit by Express Scripts, alleging that the FTC’s bombshell report on their egregious business practices was like honestly really defamatory :( (Express Scripts would probably HATE if I reminded you that the FTC report revealed that PBMs like Express Scripts significantly inflate drug costs, sometimes by up to 40 times, while controlling nearly 80% of prescription management in the U.S., which gives them extensive influence over drug prices and access. Won’t somebody PLEASE think of the huge multinational corporations?!) Well, now, somebody is — Democratic senators Sherrod Brown and Ron Wyden, to be precise. Unfortunately for Express Scripts, what they’re thinking about is ANOTHER antitrust lawsuit, this time targeting the PBMs’ even bigger parent companies and the co-manufacturing agreements they’re creating. Two of the Big 3 PBMs have entered co-manufacturing agreements with the drugmakers they supposedly negotiate against to set drug prices. “[These agreements] are a veiled attempt by PBMs to control additional parts of the supply chain which has resulted in additional harm to consumers in the form of fewer drug choices and higher drug costs”, said senators Brown and Wyden in a letter to the FTC. After all the damage these greedy companies have done to our industry and our patients, it’s about time that these PBMs start facing this onslaught of scrutiny. From where we’re sitting, the biggest problem with endless FTC antitrust suits for PBMs would be us running out of popcorn. Wanna kick the big PBMs while they’re down? Bring Scripted to your pharmacy and bill vaccines and clinical services to medical insurance — and get paid more to do it: scripted.co/pharmacists Full coverage on this suit: https://lnkd.in/edgXK2sF #LetUsPrescribe #pharmacistsprovidecare #PharmacyPaybackTime

Exciting news for our colleagues in Chicago: our founder James Lott (PharmD., MPP) will be representing Scripted next week among eight selected startups to pitch at the 1871 x World Business Chicago Founder Pitch Showcase! If you're an investor or involved in the Chicago tech scene, I encourage you to attend and see us pitch our vision for the future of the pharmacy alongside some impressive hand-selected tech companies. ??? October 17th, 2024, 2-4PM RSVP: https://lu.ma/5wexdb5v #StartupShowcase #ChicagoTech #1871Chicago #LetUsPrescribe #PharmacyPaybackTime

If you give us 30 seconds to explain, you’ll understand why this may be the BIGGEST PHARMACY NEWS of 2024. Via Forbes: multiple insurers are now moving to expand reimbursement for prescriptions written by pharmacists. #LetUsPrescribe Okay, we know insurance and reimbursement rates are kind of complicated and boring, but we promise, this is a HUGE deal for EVERY pharmacy. Let’s break this down… As you likely know, reimbursements for medications and treatments are a significant part of almost every pharmacy’s bottom line. Low reimbursement rates set by greedy PBMs are one of the most urgent financial burdens many pharmacies face today. But you may not know that pharmacy reimbursement rates and medical insurance reimbursement rates are VERY different — even for the exact same treatments. How different? Up to hundreds of dollars PER ADMINISTERED TREATMENT. Even for common treatments like everyday vaccines, pharmacies can potentially earn hundreds of dollars more for every single needle that goes in an arm, just by getting reimbursed via a medical insurance plan rather than d.0. For some pharmacies, the difference between d.0 and medical reimbursement rates is literally the difference between success and insolvency. We’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years that clinical services are the only viable solution for reducing dependency on PBM breadcrumbs and saving our independent pharmacies. Then, the big corporations jumped on board and began outlining their own plans to launch clinical services. Now, for the big insurance companies, this reality is now too big to ignore. Nationwide insurance firms like Cigna and Blue Cross Blue Shield are starting to increase their reimbursement of pharmacies for common prescriptions and conditions — at the same rates other providers get. So that’s the real story here: we may be standing on the precipice of a clinical service revolution that transforms the business model of the pharmacy and stops thousands of struggling pharmacies from needing to rely on the greed of the Big 3 PBMs. This is an incredibly exciting development. We’re eagerly awaiting more insurance firms following this trend and expanding reimbursement offerings to pharmacists so they can get paid at the rates they deserve. You can start bringing medical reimbursement to your pharmacy NOW with Scripted. Join our medical billing interest list: https://lnkd.in/ebBg3wQ2 Source: https://lnkd.in/eVE-J63R

Basically Express Scripts’ lawyers after reading that FTC investigation condemning PBMs: “How DARE you say things that are entirely true” That’s right — Express Scripts is now SUING THE FTC and demanding that they withdraw their recent bombshell report highlighting egregious PBM business practices. As a reminder, that report — which Express Scripts lawyers call “unfair, biased, erroneous, and defamatory” — revealed that PBMs like Express Scripts significantly inflate drug costs, sometimes by up to 40 times, while controlling nearly 80% of prescription management in the U.S., which gives them extensive influence over drug prices and access. Their opaque practices, including steering patients to PBM-affiliated pharmacies for higher profits, have contributed to the closure of 10% of independent retail pharmacies between 2013 and 2022. Sorry — “allegedly”. You might think a report like that would make the PBMs take a moment to consider whether their business practices actually benefit anyone in the pharmacy industry other than themselves. Thankfully, their legal teams were apparently too busy crytyping to waste any mental effort on introspection. This lawsuit, folks, is WILD. The text of this suit personally accuses Lina Khan, Commissioner of the FTC, of anti-PBM bias (?!) and calls the FTC report “seventy-four pages of unsupported innuendo leveled against Express Scripts and other PBMs under a false and defamatory headline”. “The fix was in before the ‘study’ even started”, one page proclaims, before continuing to drag Chair Khan’s alleged aNtI-pBm BiAs all the way back to her law school days. They allege that the Commission has become an “ideological pawn driven by political winds”, a near-criminal mixing of metaphors that we regret is not legally actionable. If Express Scripts have their way, they’ll convince a federal judge to require that the FTC withdraw their report, and recuse Chair Khan from any further investigation of Express Scripts. Express Scripts alleges that this PBM report is damaging to their reputation. Here’s our takeaway: if the allegations in the report are true, they SHOULD be damaging. Inflating drug costs for patients and contributing to the closure of indie pharmacies is SHAMEFUL behavior, and any resulting loss of business is WELL-DESERVED. We hope Chair Khan is having a pleasant afternoon. Sources: https://lnkd.in/eUx7_h5P / https://lnkd.in/eHsyKnpv #LetUsPrescribe #PharmacistsProvideCare

With Scripted, even the busiest fall vaccine season can be handled in a pinch. Our industry-leading vaccine workflow helps high-volume pharmacies… ??? Accept appointments and manage walk-ins in one place. ?? Administer more than one vaccine in one simple flow. Patients can select up to 3 vaccines to receive at the same time, and you’ll use one combined workflow to administer them all. ?? Administer like experts with simple, clear documentation. When new vaccines roll out, Scripted updates automatically with up-to-date information so pharmacists don’t miss a beat. Ready to level-up your clinical admin this vaccine season? Join the Scripted movement: scripted.co/pharmacists?#pharmacistsprovidecare #letusprescribe

Collaborative Practice Agreements (CPAs) can be the key to unlocking new care offerings at your pharmacy — but often, require understanding state-specific regulations and working directly with a provider. Scripted makes it easy by connecting pharmacists to providers and automating the agreement-writing process. But whether you're using Scripted to handle your CPAs or going it alone, we've broken down the entire CPA authorship process on our site so that more pharmacies can bring more care to more patients. Get started with CPAs: https://lnkd.in/ejwrUSiU #LetUsPrescribe #pharmacistsprovidecare