The twofold focus of this blog is on recognizing the strength of your individual voice and broadly increasing pharmacist engagement with grassroots advocacy. We firmly believe that the most significant change occurs when more individuals are involved and politically active. Through grassroots advocacy, we ensure our elected leaders know our perspectives on important healthcare issuesContinue reading “Pharmacy Benefit Managers, Political Action Committees, and Lobbying… Oh My!”
Author Archives: The Grassroots Pharmacist
Pharmacists’ patients lose access to meds as USPS disrupted
As the medication experts on the healthcare team, pharmacists understand the negative impact when patients do not have access to their necessary and life-saving medications. For many unfortunate reasons, the current disruption with the United States Postal Service (USPS) must be addressed as millions of patients receive their medication by mail and thus are facingContinue reading “Pharmacists’ patients lose access to meds as USPS disrupted”
An Open Letter to Incoming Student Pharmacists: Our Profession Needs you
Dear Incoming Student Pharmacists, Congratulations, and welcome to the profession of pharmacy! You have taken the first step in the incredible journey of becoming the most accessible and one of the most trusted healthcare professionals, a pharmacist. Take this moment to reflect on the incredible hard work and dedication that resulted in you being whereContinue reading “An Open Letter to Incoming Student Pharmacists: Our Profession Needs you”
Déjà vu…Pharmacist state scope of practice overruled by HHS: Take 2!
If you liked the premiere, you are going to love the sequel. In a huge move on August 19, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has further amended his declaration of the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act. In doing so, he has allowed pharmacists and pharmacy internsContinue reading “Déjà vu…Pharmacist state scope of practice overruled by HHS: Take 2!”
Senate introduces bill to expand pharmacists’ ability to provide telehealth services
On August 4th, U.S. Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) introduced Senate Bill 4421: the Temporary Reciprocity to Ensure Access to Treatment (TREAT) Act. As stated by Murphy’s and Blunt’s press releases, this bill “allows any health care practitioner or professional in good standing with a valid practitioners’ license to render services—including telehealth—anywhereContinue reading “Senate introduces bill to expand pharmacists’ ability to provide telehealth services”
Racial Differences in COVID-19 and the Potential for Pharmacists
At the end of July, CMS published updated data on COVID-19 impacts on the Medicare population, including details on the American Indian/Alaskan Native Medicare beneficiaries for the first time. The new data indicated that this population has the second highest rate of hospitalization for COVID-19 among racial and ethnic groups after Blacks. The updated informationContinue reading “Racial Differences in COVID-19 and the Potential for Pharmacists”
Pharmacist Medicare incident-to telehealth services here to stay?
It is no news that pharmacists are able to bill incident to a physician when providing patient care services. This has been widely discussed since the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) requested clarification on this from CMS back in 2014. Despite this clarification, some pharmacists have still faced pushback on billing incident to theContinue reading “Pharmacist Medicare incident-to telehealth services here to stay?”
Board of Pharmacy Restricts Hydroxychloroquine, then Caves to Ohio Governor
We didn’t think it would be useful to cover the proven inefficacious use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine on this blog. By the time we had launched, studies had already begun to question speculations circulating on social media of its efficacy for the treatment of COVID-19. The American Medical Association, along with national pharmacy organizations, publishedContinue reading “Board of Pharmacy Restricts Hydroxychloroquine, then Caves to Ohio Governor”
Advocacy Advice: How to advocate through print media
As a result of a world where policies are constantly changing because of the pandemic, we at The Grassroots Pharmacist have been largely focused so far on providing updates on all of these changes. However, a key piece of our purpose is not only to provide educational content on the ties between health policy andContinue reading “Advocacy Advice: How to advocate through print media”
Why pharmacists need to count on the census
The census, the decennial count of our nation, is important for a variety of reasons. As a vehicle for how our democracy functions, the primary purpose of the census is to determine the number of congressional representatives each state has. The basis of our government is on balance between the three branches of government thatContinue reading “Why pharmacists need to count on the census”
The Grassroots Pharmacist 