Well, another year, another crappy start with insurance/PBM issues. How many new cards have you had to call about, and what about that D.0. It should have been called BO or better yet BS data requirements. I hope everyone had great holidays and enjoyed the seasons and now let's get to the new year. We all know the story of Peter Parker, the boy who was bitten by that spider, and overnight received amazing powers. In our independent industry today Spiderman is the Co-op. When co-ops first started out they were going to help us in purchasing generic drugs. Now they do everything from third party contracting, front end merchandising, loss prevention, auditing help and who knows what else. During this whole process where are we at with purchasing generics? Not much better than 20 years ago. None of our independent co-ops are big enough to leverage any generic company so most of them use one of our friendly neighborhood wholesalers to get the leverage. Nothing beats being the little guy with a 300lb defensive lineman behind you. When we fill scripts and get paid 8 bucks for 8 ounces of Hydromet from Caremark and that 8 ounces cost us 22 bucks where did our co-op benefit us? I say that every service a co-op provides benefit independent pharmacy, but someone needs to hammer these companies to get the lowest price on generic product. IF our co-ops are amazing (and most are) then why in the hell are they not working TOGETHER ! If every co-op joined together and put together a program to bid out generic product then we could get somewhere on the buy side. To do that, guess what, they need to get rid of the 300lb lineman, and that ain't easy. Especially when he helps you do all that other amazing stuff. I think it's about time our friends in the co-ops start working for US and find a way to work together to lower our costs of goods. Now let me say this. I hear that there is movement under foot for some of our co-ops to work with some of the big boy chains. If this happens I would ask, do you think that the big boys will give up their advantage to help us? Maybe so. All I know is I would rather have all the independent co-ops working together than a few working with one of the big chains. As for Fails To Care, don't you think the FTC is about as useless as a pig with wings. How in the world can they fail to see what harm this alliance has done to the public by the way they are restricting access and taking unfair market advantage of patient data. Now that this has been decided by the FTC you will see more restricted networks and use of patient data than ever before. I guess when every last independent pharmacy is closed maybe the feds will care. CVS/CM paid 5 million, I bet NCPA and other independent pharmacy groups spent over 50 million fighting this merger. So, what about ESI/Medco? I say, save your money. Fails To Care will approve it as well because the FTC could give a rat's whisker about small business. They never have and never will. If the republican candidates want to do away with a part of government that is worthless for small business then let's nominate the FTC. Listen, let your voice be heard. If you are tired of all this BS, let your co-op know, your association know, your congressman, even your mailman. If you don't like the way an audit turned out, go to the courthouse and sue them. Ask a jury of your peers if it's fair for a PBM to take back the cost of the drug when there are no laws broken. Stand up, get angry, make some noise. You don't need that lineman. If every Peter Parker stands together no one can stop them. Start standing.
Kris
