National, State Efforts Aim to Help Pharmacists Struggling with Burnout
Many workers were already burned out and exhausted when COVID-19 slammed pharmacies in March 2020. The pandemic exacerbated problems with workload increases, time constraints, quota pressures, and then piled on staffing shortages, increased responsibilities, supply chain backups, medication shortages – the list goes on. The strain not only caused distress to pharmacy workers, but it […]
Read More ›Congress Prepares for the Next Phase of the Pandemic and Transformations in the Telehealth Industry
With the release of the White House’s next phase National COVID-19 Preparedness Plan and looming deadlines to fund the federal government, including replenishing aid for pandemic relief, it has been an eventful month on Capitol Hill for the health care industry. In the most recent iteration of President Joseph R. Biden’s pandemic preparedness plan, the White House […]
Read More ›New Business Models, Revised Regulations Improving Pharmacy Access in Rural Communities
For many people living in rural areas, access to pharmacy services is difficult. The University of Iowa’s Rural Policy Research Institute Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis reports that more than 16% of the independently owned rural pharmacies in the US closed between March 2003 and March 2018, lowering the number to fewer than 6,400. […]
Read More ›DEA Seeks Public Input as it Explores Regulating Telepharmacy
The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic prompted state and federal government to shift guidance and relax policies on a wide range of telehealth services, which resulted in a boom in remote offerings for patients. However, long before this rapid transformation in telehealth, telepharmacy, an increasingly popular form of remote pharmacy care, has operated under a patchwork of state laws with […]
Read More ›Health Care Merchant FAQs
Pharmacies and other health care businesses tend to ask our digital health team the same questions about pharmacy and telemedicine compliance. Given the complexity and nuance of federal and state law – this is totally understandable! In the interest of public education, we thought we would answer a few questions below. Can We Sell Ingestible […]
Read More ›A Decade Later, NABP PMP InterConnect is Still a Vital Tool for Prescribers
This year, we celebrate 10 years of NABP PMP InterConnect and are proud that the system now hosts 1 million users across 52 states and jurisdictions. It processes more than 1 billion patient encounters annually, saving providers 2 to 5 minutes per patient encounter. The service links state prescription monitoring programs (PMPs), allowing physicians, pharmacists, and other authorized users to check patients prescription drug […]
Read More ›Why Words Matter When Treating Substance Use Disorder
Sometimes, society has trouble catching up with what science teaches us. For example, addiction science. Decades of research have proven that addiction is a medical disorder that affects the brain, not a moral failing. But centuries’ worth of stigma remains. Only 13% of people struggling with opioid use disorder will seek treatment. Part of the problem is that the stigma is encoded within the language we use to describe addiction and its effects, with […]
Read More ›FDA’s Online Opioid Summit – How Internet Stakeholders Can Proactively Reduce the Availability of Opioids Online
Earlier this month, the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held its third Online Opioid Summit, a day-long event convening representatives from prominent technology and social media companies, academic researchers, and experts from public health nonprofits, including NABP, to discuss ways to collaborate to reduce the availability of opioids on the internet. Introduced in […]
Read More ›Why Medicine Sold on Social Media Can Be Deadly
If Charlie had known how prolific fake pills on social media were, would he still be alive? It’s a haunting question for his parents, Ed and Mary Ternan, because the answer is probably “yes.” Had he known, maybe he wouldn’t have taken a single pill last year, bought on social media, to relieve his back pain. He thought it was a painkiller, but instead it was a […]
Read More ›Truths and Misconceptions About FDA’s Compounding MOU
Earlier this month, FDA announced it will provide states one more year to decide whether to sign its compounding memorandum of understanding (MOU) before the agency begins enforcing the statutory 5% limit on out-of-state distribution of compounded human drug products. This comes after many states asked for more time to wrangle with the legal and […]
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