Medicare Is Paying $194 for a $20 Drug

Medicare is on pace to waste $126 million this year overpaying for one generic drug. The drug is lamotrigine ER, the extended-release version of a widely used medication for seizures and bipolar disorder. It's an old generic with several manufacturers, and its price has been coming down. If you pay through insurance, though, you'd never know it. Medicare is paying nearly $200 per prescription. At our pharmacy, a 3-month supply costs about $20 without insurance.

They Picked Your Medicine. You Just Pay.

The insurance companies and their PBMs sat down and decided which biosimilars they would cover. And guess which ones they picked. They picked their own white-label products. Express Scripts, CVS Caremark, and OptumRx excluded nearly all the non-house-brand biosimilars from their 2025 formularies.

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I Took the PBM Lobby's IQ Quiz!

The PBM lobby made an online "IQ quiz" to teach the public how helpful pharmacy benefit managers really are. So I took it. I failed. Proudly.

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Compounded Tirzepatide & Semaglutide with Glycine: What You Need to Know in 2026

If you're exploring compounded GLP-1 weight loss injections, you may have noticed a shift in how compounding pharmacies formulate tirzepatide and semaglutide. At Forest Park Pharmacy in Fort Worth, Texas, we now offer both compounded tirzepatide with glycine and compounded semaglutide with glycine — formulated at a compounding pharmacy and available for shipping to Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, Idaho, and New Mexico. Why Glycine? Understanding the Formulation Glyci

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The Debanking Dilemma: The Impact on Independent Pharmacies

While the intent to protect public health is clear, the execution must be refined to avoid collateral damage to independent pharmacies.

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Support for Independents or Another PBM Cost Driver? Examining OptumRx’s New Add-on

OptumRx, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers, introduced initiatives aimed at creating an "independent Pharmacy Network"

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A New Legal Target in the Opioid Epidemic: Michigan's Case Against PBMs

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently filed a lawsuit against OptumRX and Express Scripts

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CVS CEO Steps Down - Can Their PBM Chief Solve The Problems

CVS stock is down 19% for the year, and another 5% today alone following the announcement of the new CEO

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Why Walgreens is Closing Another 1200 Stores and What it Means for You

As a pharmacy owner, I can tell you exactly why this keeps happening specifically to Walgreens.

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Do Pharmaceutical Reps Influence Physicians?

The result is that many physicians end up prescribing expensive, brand-name drugs when lower-cost generic alternatives are available.

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3 Jobs with Most Expensive Health Insurance

Based on 2024 data, here are the top three industries with the most expensive family health plans:

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