CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna

Re:CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna by Spooky23 on Sunday December 03, 2017 @08:14PM (#15840750)

The pharmacist “supervises” te process. Mail order has been doing this for 20 years. There used to two big ones... Caremark and Express Scripts. Now CVS, the Comcast of drugs, swallowed both up.

Hospitals do this too. In some cases 2-3 pharmacists can cover 10-12 hospitals for off shift dispensing needs.

With the black horse cavalry running the country, we’re going to see lots of M&A activity like this.

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Re:CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna by alphabettsy on Sunday December 03, 2017 @08:40PM (#15840851)

Pharmacists must directly supervise dispensing. Many hospitals use a central-fill pharmacy where the prescriptions are filled for many hospitals.

The problem with these mergers is they allow health plans that further disadvantage other pharmacies or providers. Once those other options are eliminated we’ll see prices rise. Do people actually want the Home Depot’s of healthcare rather than the equivalent of the local hardware store? We’ll see I guess.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:CVS Is Said to Agree to Buy Aetna by mywittyname on Monday December 04, 2017 @12:26PM (#15845575)

Optical insurance has been like this for a long time. For example, EyeMed is owned by Luxottica, who owns the majority of eye wear retailers in the USA.

Evidence suggests that they've used their monopoly to artificially inflate prices quite dramatically.

[ Parent | on HN ]