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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
Michael Lyon, Emergency Coalition to Save Public Health, 128 Faith St, San Francisco, CA 94110, 415-282-5218, mlyon01@attbi.com
The talk will describe the struggle that our coalition and unions put up against the San Francisco Health Department's efforts to close San Francisco General Hospital's Outpatient Pharmacy and contract out to neighborhood retail pharmacies. A compromise was reached saving the pharmacy, permitting the contracting out, and establishing a Community-Labor-Management Pharmacy Oversight Committee. However, the struggle continues as Pharmacy threatens to impose co-payments to indigent patients and withdraw vital drugs from the formulary, in response to the high cost of using a Pharmacy Benefit Manager and possible budget cuts. We are also trying to force Pharmacy to change their operations so they can qualify for deeply-discounted PHS pricing for medicines for indigent patients visiting retail pharmacies The talk will also describe the problems of trying to work with Pharmacy management to obtain information on pharmacy operations and to counter disinformation Pharmacy management supplies the hospital's governing body.
Learning Objectives:
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.