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What Is Health Mart Pharmacy?

What Is Health Mart Pharmacy
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What is healthmart Atlas?

Improving the effectiveness of the pharmacy by: – Your reimbursements from a variety of managed care plans are consolidated by Health Mart Atlas, and 100 percent of the cash are transferred to you in installments that are simple to monitor. You not only save time, but you also reduce the number of checks you need to maintain and deposit.

Is McKesson a PSAO?

Health Mart | The Story of One Pharmacy Owner in Portland, Oregon

McKesson made the announcement of the establishment of Health Mart Atlas (HMA) in the week before last. HMA will be a partnership between McKesson’s Access Health division and American Pharmacy Network Solutions (APNS). You can read the news release by clicking here.

McKesson’s position as the world’s leading pharmaceutical services administrative organization (PSAO) is strengthened as a result of the merger. According to the flowchart we have for the United States Distribution and Reimbursement System, PSAOs are the intermediates that act between smaller pharmacies and pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs).

The name of these PSAOs is very strange. When the Arete Pharmacy Network was established in 2016, I had a premonition that the PSAO industry, which is very fragmented, would start a consolidation that was long overdue. The PSAOs that are still standing are powerless in the face of Health Mart Atlas given the presence of the PBM giants atop Mount Olympus.

FLA When it comes to contract talks with PBMs and other third-party payers, nearly all smaller pharmacies are members of pharmacy services administrative organizations, also known as PSAOs. This allows them to maximize their collective power. The PSAO connection is essential for independent pharmacies since prescription dispensing accounts for more than ninety percent of these pharmacies’ overall revenue.

Please refer to Section 5.4.3. of our 2018 Economic Report on U.S. Pharmacies and Pharmacy Benefit Managers for further information about the PSAOs’ contracting and reimbursement services. In the previous article, titled “How Independent Pharmacies Will Participate (Or Not) in 2018’s Part D Preferred Pharmacy Networks,” we also highlighted the PSAOs’ contracting for Medicare Part D.

PSAOs are famous for one other important element as well. There are a lot of three-letter acronyms (TLAs) that are used throughout the drug channel system. Some examples are GPO, PBM, WAC, CMS, IDN, MAC, and DIR. It’s nice to find a true four-letter abbreviation every once in a while (FLA). SKY BLUE SKY The most recent version of our ranking of the top PSAOs may be seen in the table below.

According to our best estimates, almost 19,000 locally owned and operated pharmacies are members of PSAOs provided by both national and regional drug distributors. The main PSAOs are owned and operated by pharmaceutical wholesalers, who provide this service as a benefit to their smaller pharmacy customers.

The corporate ownership structure of wholesalers gives smaller drugstores an edge in the negotiation process. AccessHealth, which is operated by McKesson, is the most significant PSAO. Its expansion occurred at the same time as McKesson was rapidly growing its Health Mart franchise. Readers with very good memory may recall that McKesson purchased the Health Mart franchise in conjunction with its acquisition of FoxMeyer in 1996.

However, the company did not begin to place significant emphasis on the initiative until about 2006. Since then, Health Mart has grown from having 260 pharmacies in operation in the year 2006 to having more than 4,800 pharmacies in operation in the year 2017.

  1. American Pharmacy Network Solutions (APNS) is a subsidiary of American Pharmacy Cooperative, Inc.
  2. (APCI), an organization that is comprised of 1,600 individual pharmacies that work together to make purchases.
  3. APCI has decided to work with McKesson as its wholesaler of choice.
  4. (Please refer to Exhibit 138 of our 2018 pharmacy/PBM report for a complete listing of pharmacy buying groups.) Access Health and the PSAO services offered by APNS will be merged by Health Mart Atlas to form a PSAO that is even larger and will consist of an incredible 6,600 pharmacies.
See also:  Where Can I Become A Pharmacy Technician?

Some of the non-PSAO services offered by APNS have been renamed and are now offered under the name APCI Choice. Since the news release refers to HMA as a “joint venture,” I am going to assume that McKesson will now include the PSAO element of APCI Choice in its public reporting.

  1. The scale at which HMA operates is an effort being made to offset the heavily concentrated PBM business.
  2. More than 70 percent of all prescription claims in the United States are handled by three pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs): the Caremark division of CVS Health, Express Scripts, and the OptumRx unit of UnitedHealth.

Please refer to the graphic that may be found in the article titled “Cigna-Express Scripts: Vertical Integration and PBMs’ Medical-Pharmacy Future.” The alignment also assures that McKesson will continue to be an essential component of the distribution strategy that manufacturers employ for products that are extensively administered.

  1. Joint ventures like as HMA present a barrier for any company that want to circumvent the full-line wholesale channel.
  2. This is true despite the fact that Amazon and “selling direct” are also topics that are frequently discussed.
  3. In Greek mythology, Zeus punished Atlas by making him carry the weight of the heavens on his shoulders.

It would appear that McKesson has tasked itself with the same onerous responsibility for the floundering independent pharmacy industry. What Is Health Mart Pharmacy

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