Whitney connected me to Teresa Dickinson, a PUTT founding member, board member, and former president who is also the owner of the independent Melrose Pharmacy in Phoenix, Arizona. The pharmacy is located in the heart of the city’s “gayborhood” and serves many people living with HIV. Shortly after Dickinson opened her pharmacy in 2005, she told me, “I started getting prescription denials from health plans saying, ‘No, this patient has to go to CVS’” because of PBM tie-ins. She also said it’s common that PBMs make pharmacists sign a contract, “but after that, they’ll fax us with changes in the contract and, for us, it’s take it or leave it—you either accept the PBM’s reimbursement rate or you don’t do any Caremark patients, and for me that’s over 55% of my patients.”...

PBM reform bill put forth by Governor Hobbs

Expanding Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs

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Please click here to for a PDF of the bill language & to track this bill's progress in the Arizona Legislature

“If 90 percent of the compounding pharmacies decide not to compound anymore, close their doors, Arizona citizens will suffer,” said Boesen & Snow Partner and Co-founder Mark Boesen, Pharm.D., J.D., while speaking before the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy on August 16, 2023, about the ramifications of the Board adopting future United States Pharmacopeia General Chapters ‹795›, ‹797›, and ‹800›. Representing the Arizona Pharmacy Association and the Arizona Independent Pharmacy Coalition, he explained these compounded medications are drugs of last resort for patients who use them...

The Arizona Independent Pharmacy Coalition (AIPC) applauds Senator Nancy Barto, the Arizona state legislature, and Governor Doug Ducey for the passage of SB1356, which will now prevent pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from charging pharmacies a “transaction fee” each and every time the pharmacy submits a claim for reimbursement or otherwise interfaces with the PBM.  Fees can range from 25 cents to as much as $2 per claim, which adds up to thousands of dollars a month that pharmacies must pay PBMs in order to be reimbursed by patient insurance...

Responding to former Scottsdale Councilwoman Suzanne Klapp’s recent editorial criticizing proposed legislation to “de-link” PBM profits from the rebates they negotiate with drug manufacturers. Like most employers, Ms. Klapp has been misled to believe that PBMs can negotiate prescription drug discounts as a percentage of the drug’s artificially inflated list price, keep some (or even all) of the rebates negotiated, and somehow those retained rebates will equal lower costs for consumers at the pharmacy counter...

Passing through the doorway of Melrose Pharmacy in uptown Phoenix feels like entering the 1950s. Its throwback decor harkens to another era.

But the pharmacy’s owner said she faces a distinctly modern challenge: pharmacy benefit managers.

“I have been frustrated with PBM’s since the day I opened,” said pharmacist Teresa Dickinson. “Every year I say it can’t get worse. And every year it gets worse.”...

Drugs costs are a major concern for most Americans. The current healthcare system allows Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) to act as middlemen and reap large profits off the backs of consumers. Reform is long overdue. As Congress considering major drug pricing, a new poll conducted by the Arizona Independent Pharmacy Coalition (AIPC) demonstrates the frustration that consumers are feeling with PBMs under the current system...