President Donald Trump gave a speech about pharmaceutical drug prices last month. During his presidential campaign and leading up to his inauguration, he accused pharmaceutical companies with “getting away with murder” for what they charge patients for prescriptions and promised to enact reforms to lower drug prices. After sixteen months in office, his speech last …
Category Archive: Healthcare Reform
Women’s Health Week
This past Mother’s Day launched the 19th annual National Women’s Health Week. Led by the US Department of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health, the goal is to empower women to make their health a priority and raise awareness of the steps one can take to improve their health. The Centers for Disease …
Getting out of the Weeds with Medicinal Cannabis
Medicinal cannabis (aka medical marijuana) is a growing topic in the United States. Today, there are 29 states (plus Washington DC) where cannabis is a legal medical option for patients. Cannabis is mostly prescribed for pain relief but can also be used to treat muscle spasms caused by multiple sclerosis, chemotherapy-induced nausea, lack of appetite …
Laws Proposed to Protect Patients from Artificially High Prescription Costs
In a previous blog post, we explored “clawback” and how it affects the prices of prescriptions. In short, Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) negotiate copay prices for insurers that are often higher than the cash price paid by uninsured patients all while instituting a “gag rule” for pharmacists to forbid them from revealing the price discrepancy …
LGBT Health Awareness Week 2018
The last week of March has been LGBT Health Awareness Week since 2003. We have gone over some of the barriers to health care for some of the transgender community in previous blog posts, but it remains important to bring awareness to the unique healthcare needs of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and the …