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

Back in 2017, the California Department of Healthcare Services (DHCS) approved a new methodology  – National Average Drug Acquisition Cost (NADAC) –  for reimbursing pharmacies for their drug cost. NADAC prices significantly reduced pharmacy reimbursements. See a related blog post.

For technical and financial reasons, the DHCS has not implemented the new reimbursement methodology until

I receive many questions regarding the transition to Medi-Cal Rx (a new California Medicaid program for processing pharmacy claims). The Department of Healthcare Services has just announced its Medi-Cal Rx training program for pharmacies and prescribers. If you bill Medi-Cal, I strongly suggest that you take advantage of this resource.

The training consists of three

The California Department of Healthcare Service (DHCS) has just posted an update regarding Medi-Cal Rx transition (See Related Blog Post). In anticipation of this transition, there are some early cutoff activities that California pharmacies should note:

  • Pharmacy Paper Claim Submitters: The cutoff for claims processing for paper claim submissions to the current

The SUPPORT Act (Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act) requires that controlled substances prescriptions covered under Medicare Part D be transmitted electronically. The effective date for compliance was set for January 1, 2021. Does this mean that pharmacies can no longer accept paper/faxed prescriptions?

First of all,

Since the inception of the 340b program, drug manufacturers have been attempting to curtail it to avoid offering discounts or to prevent double discounts (which occurs when a 340b drug is billed to a Medicaid program). This year, however, there were multiple coordinated attempts by manufacturers to exit the program. For example:

  • AstraZeneca will stop