CVS-Aetna Merger – a Good Deal?

CVS Health and Aetna closed their $69 billion merger on Wednesday, November 28, 2018 bringing together one of the nation’s largest pharmacy chains with health insurance giant Aetna yet, there are still many unanswered questions. What about antitrust implications? Will this merger reduce healthcare costs?

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Your Patients are Asking

The idea for a blog post with a compilation of (fairly) recent, consumer interest, pharmacy-related topics struck after listening to a local radio personality and remembering the regular newsletters Val wrote while Executive Director of the Colorado Pharmacists Society.  So

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Merger Mania in the Health Care Industry: What is Going On?

Just 3 months after CVS Health announced its intention to acquire Aetna, Cigna agrees to buy PBM Express Scripts and Albertsons agrees to buy Rite Aid stores. Experts in healthcare are saying these mergers and acquisitions have the potential to

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14 Questions to Qualify Your Lobbyist

You know as well as anyone there are different types of people in the world. Some folks bluster about, announcing their prowess and successes left and right while achieving minimal accomplishments while others quietly and strategically plant purposeful and long-range

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A Year in Review

2017 certainly was an interesting year. At Value Pharmacists the year was a bit more predicatable and uneventful than in other companies and organizations. Val continued to serve as CPESN facilitator in Colorado and maintained his role as a LTC

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Get your prescription filled by Amazon Pharmacy?

Amazon hasn’t said publicly what its plans are in pharmacy, but that hasn’t stopped a constant onslaught of questions from industry analysts, PBM executives and pharmacy chains about the potential for Amazon to get into the prescription business.  While we

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Considering Collaborative Practice? Consider CU’s Apothecary!

Susan Mead, Pharm.D., Director of The Apothecary at the University of Colorado School of Pharmacy, manages the university’s pharmacies in Boulder, Colorado including the Wardenburg Health Center Apothecary and the Boulder Health Center Pharmacy. Her pharmacies serve primarily CU students, staff

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Concentrating on My Prescriptions?

My thoughts recently have revolved around the practice of pharmacy and the possibility of expanding health-care services offered to me, as a patient, by my pharmacist. What do I want my pharmacist to do for me? Pharmacists I know, or have

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Thankful for a Full-FILLED Year

Value Pharmacists is now one year old. We’re feeling very grateful and fulfilled. We officially launched this blog and advocacy site with a first email in early December 2015. It’s been quite the year. Our “stats” as of December 8th, 2016

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What is “it?” How to Use”it?”

Legislators have it! Savvy business leaders have it! Does your pharmacy organization have it? “It” is institutional memory. It is the innate knowledge carried by an individual or group of individuals comprising what works and what doesn’t; why certain tactics

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