Pharmacists

NE-7 was the number to dial in Newhall when a railroad or gas company worker needed his medicine or a rancher needed a vaccine or serum to treat hog cholera. Since that first phone was installed at the Newhall Pharmacy in 1951, the old downtown district and the store have changed considerably, but Ralph Williams' work habits and business practices have survived.

If you've never come face-to-face with the pharmacist at your local drug store, get ready for a big surprise. Beginning Jan. 1, pharmacists throughout the state will emerge from behind the counter to assume a role that could well change the face of pharmacy services and greatly influence how Californians take their medicines. A state Board of Pharmacy regulation will require pharmacists to consult with every patient who receives a new prescription or a refill that has changed.

Pharmacists at Los Angeles County-run medical facilities staged a strike Monday, causing delays for patients needing medicine, but the job action was cut short after a judge issued a restraining order. Managers stepped in alongside temporarily hired pharmacists to fill prescriptions as regular workers stayed home on what had been planned as the first of a two-day strike. Outpatients at the hospitals were sent to Rite Aid stores, which the county agreed to reimburse.

Pharmacists say a government report released Thursday validates their concerns that payments under the Medicare drug benefit are driving some of them out of business. The report from the Health and Human Services inspector general showed that pharmacies are able to charge insurers about 18% more than what they pay for medicine. Also, the pharmacists get a dispensing fee of about $2.27 per prescription. But the Assn.

Thrifty Drug Stores violated federal labor law by cutting working hours and otherwise punishing union pharmacists who refused to accept newly created management jobs, the National Labor Relations Board alleged Monday. The charges, which are being contested by Thrifty, stemmed from complaints filed by the three Southern California union locals representing pharmacists at the chain.

With drugstores now a battleground in the war over reproductive rights, California lawmakers today will consider whether to create the nation's first law requiring pharmacists to fill emergency contraception prescriptions and other medications even if they find them immoral. Two Democratic bills pending in the Legislature would require druggists to dispense all lawful drugs.

You already knew that our healthcare system is screwy. But you probably didn't know that at least some pharmacists at CVS, the nation's second-largest drugstore chain, were refilling prescriptions and submitting claims to insurers without patients' approval. The bizarre, possibly illegal practice was spelled out in confidential emails sent this year by a CVS pharmacy supervisor to dozens of pharmacists under his control. The emails make clear that an internal quota existed for prescription refills, with at least 30% of calls to patients about their medications expected to result in return business.

Mark Gonzalez runs a drugstore in Yorba Linda where he makes each prescription from scratch. He uses a glass mortar and pestle to mix his medicinal powders, the same tools that have served this ancient craft for generations. Gonzalez, who opened his store, Med Specialties, last year, is one of a legion of druggists who have brought back the time-honored art of pharmaceutical compounding, which, until recently, had become all but extinct.

A Sherman Oaks pharmacist was arrested Wednesday morning and charged with carrying out an elaborate workers' compensation scam that involved underfilling prescriptions and swapping generic drugs for brand names, authorities said. The scam--the first of its kind in California, according to the state Department of Insurance--netted Donald Lewis Levine, 57, more than $3 million in phony charges over a four-year period, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Betty Munisoglu.

Medicine today relies increasingly on medications that keep patients out of the hospital, control chronic illnesses and prolong lives. But drugs also have an underappreciated drawback: side effects whose impact has been difficult to establish, especially among seniors. A new report has found that at least 1.9 million drug-related injuries, ranging from minor rashes to death, may occur each year among Americans older than 65.