Within the last two weeks, AstraZeneca sent numerous letters to pharmacies requesting information regarding dispensing and purchasing FARXIGA® in 2024. These letters inform pharmacies that AstraZeneca has identified data discrepancies in billing and purchasing FARXIGA® for each flagged pharmacy.

AstraZeneca alleges that it had perform reconciliation of purchase and dispensing data for each identified pharmacy.

On July 26, 2024, the California Department of Healthcare Services (“DHCS”) – which administers California’s Medicaid program – sent Notices of Medi-Cal Desk-Audit (“Audit”) to numerous California pharmacies. It appears that pharmacies that bill expensive specialty medications to Medi-Cal are subjects of these audits.

The Audit requests an overwhelming amount of information: from business ownership/

I recently assisted a pharmacy in a PBM audit where we had to address unauthorized refills. The PBM was recouping a substantial amount of money because a medical assistant was signing refill authorizations. While medical assistants often sign for refills, they need do so with their supervising prescriber’s credentials.

California law defines medical assistants as

Enforcement actions against compounding pharmacy have been headliners for some time. Today’s post focuses on a last year’s action against a L.A. pharmacy for paying illegal kickbacks to marketers and waiving  patients’ copays.  The pharmacy – Fusion Rx Compounding Pharmacy – was improperly paying two marketers for steering expensive prescriptions to the pharmacy.

According to

Today I would like to highlight some practical aspects in appealing PBM audits. Earlier this year, a PBM denied several pharmacy audit appeals because pharmacies were not compliant with the provider manual when presenting their appeal paperwork. Namely, the additional documentation presented by the pharmacy lacked pharmacy NABP number, prescription number, and date of fill.

The United States Attorney’s Office for Southern District of Florida has recently announced a settlement with three Florida pharmacies to resolve allegations that they fraudulently used collaborative practice agreements (“CPAs”) to bill federal health care programs for unlawfully prescribed medications.

In its press release, the governments explains that “A collaborative pharmacy practice agreement is

PBMs often flag telehealth claims and scrutinize the legitimacy of such scripts. When we see chargebacks based on “Invalid patient/prescriber relationship,” we know that it’s time for some legwork. We typically research (1) where the prescriber and patient were located; (2) whether prescriber was authorized to prescribe the medication in question; and (3) whether the

This month, the American Medical Association, American Pharmacist Association, and American Society of Health-System Pharmacists issued a joint release urging prescribers and pharmacists to stop ordering, prescribing, and dispensing ivermectin to prevent or treat Covid-19 outside of clinical trials. The reason for issuing this plea is a 24-fold increase in prescribing and dispensing of ivermectin