Thursday Thoughts

David Ermer–Uncategorized–

The FEHBlog was surprised to read in Healthcare Dive that the Federal Trade Commission is “suing “Surescripts, accusing the health IT vendor of acting illegally to maintain monopolies in electronic prescription markets for routing orders from providers to pharmacies and for determining patient eligibility for coverage of the drugs.” CVS Health,  Express Scripts, and two pharmacy trade associations own SureScripts. The Dive adds

Surescripts said it processed 1.77 billion transactions last year, a nearly 30% increase from the year before, and touted connections to “virtually all” EHR vendors, pharmacy benefit managers, pharmacies and clinicians. In a statement provided to Healthcare Dive, Surescripts CEO Tom Skelton said the company is cooperating with the investigation and has “operated fairly” for more than 18 years.

 In other words, Surescripts is a model for interoperability.

Healthcare Dive also reports that

Amazon has begun marketing [its subsidiary] PillPack’s at-home prescription drug delivery to Amazon Prime members via email and created a webpage about the service. Some customers reported Tuesday they received emails about the monthly medication delivery service, touting zero shipping costs and increased convenience.

PillPack fills and then organizes a patient’s prescriptions into daily (or whatever) pillbacks. The website’s tagline is “Switch to a Simpler Pharmacy Today.” The FEHBlog is surprised that the pharmacy chains have not rolled out their own versions of this service yet. 
Finally the FEHBlog, who is a fan of association health plans, took note of this Kaiser Health News report that federal and state regulators in AHP friendly states are permitting AHPs to continue to operate there, notwithstanding the decision from U.S. District Court here in D.C. that such plans violate ERISA.  Consumer choice is a good thing in the U.S. economy.