This video featuring pharmacist Todd Pendergraft of Broken Arrow Family Drugs gives us an up close and personal look at the incredible about of waste (in both dollars and prescription drugs) that is generated by mail order pharmacies.
All too often, patients are forced into mail-order prescription drug plans either by cuts to public health care services such as Medicaid, or even when enrolled in private insurance plans. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) think mail order is more efficient. Not according to Pendergraft:
“Stop pretending that mail order pharmacy saves the system money. Pharmacy isn’t about who can put pills in a bottle most efficiently or the most cheaply. The professional pharmacy is about a relationship between a pharmacist, who is a healthcare provider, and the patient. A pharmacist, especially an independent pharmacist, would have discovered this problem, recognized it, and put a stop to it. That is something that an automated machine in a far-away state could never do. Until people realize the amount of waste that is inherent in the mail-order pharmacy benefit and until folks understand that waste that’s out there, nothing will change.”
Watch this video to see what he’s talking about: