Evolution of Functional Pharmacy & Supportive Conferences | TWIRx

SPEAKER_1 (0:03)

Welcome to This Week in Pharmacy.

TWIRx is the weekly pulse of the pharmacy profession. And now, here's Pittsburgh native, bleeding black and gold, Pharmacy's first podcaster and founder of the Pharmacy Podcast Network, the RxPodfather. Our host, Todd Urie.

Todd Urie (0:26)

Hey, welcome to This Week in Pharmacy. It's November 13th, 2026 It has been a tiring week. I don't know how you're feeling, but I'm pretty tired. I need a weekend. Just got to see Somber.

I didn't know that this guy's name was Shane. Anybody know Somber's name was Shane? What a performance. PPG Arena in Pittsburgh. Got to take my 14 year old daughter and her friend. And I was quite impressed. It was like 80% women there. There were guys, but mostly a women's concert. And I like his music. I loved his music. His performance is crazy. It was excellent. I haven't been to a concert and embarrassed to say maybe like 12 years. So I need to get back to concerts. And I enjoyed that one. I don't know if anybody else saw Sombor in Your Neck of the Woods.

Great, great time. I hope you guys had some kind of fun this week in Pharmacy.

Hey, we got news coming up from this week in Pharmacy.

SPEAKER_1 (1:44)

And now, here's the latest in Pharmacy. Coming up on TWIRx News.

Todd Urie (1:51)

Hey, FDA is requiring updated safety labeling across GLP-1 receptor antagonists because of a potential increase risk of neuropathy.

The acronym is NAION, and it's a rare condition that can cause sudden potential permanent vision loss. This analysis is 126 clinical trials data pushed into a bunch of cases that came out of this, approximately 6.4 cases per 100,000 among these users. The risk remains rare, but they definitely want our pharmacist positions to know. And I think prescribing expands. We know it's going to continue to expand. GLP-1 prescribing and pharmacists are critical in the safety of this and discussing with your patients. The self-administering of these medications, I don't think is a good idea. What do you guys think? I think that pharmacists should be more involved, at least with check-ups as people go through a pretty... I mean, we've downplayed it because it's been out for a while now, GLP-1s and weight loss, but maybe it's time to slow down a bit and require that there's some kind of cycle. Either it's telehealth, meeting up with your pharmacist, going through maybe once every 30 days, at least getting a check-in of how you're taking these medications and the outcome as you're moving forward, identifying concerns and symptoms and support for safe medication management, and our community pharmacists sufficiently integrated into the clinical monitoring of patients receiving GLP-1 therapies. That's the question on this news. Hey, next up, we found out America lost, this is crazy. America lost more than 3,000 community pharmacies in just two years. Think of that. Think of the significant impact on public health. I think that that is more significant than what we all realize because we're living it. When you're in the trenches, you're not really paying attention. But I think studies that are going to be coming out of public health departments from the state, state perspective as well as the federal perspective are going to show that's that's massive news coming out of drug topics, drawing on the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association documents, a significant decline in the nation's pharmacy infrastructure between 2022 and 2024

7,240 closures in total over the studied time between 2022 and 2024 And then from 2024 to 2026, an additional 3,000. We did see that there have been pharmacies that opened and that has pushed the loss to a total of about 3,000. That's where they're coming up with this number. So 7,240 closed, 4,178 opened, and that left us with 3,000. All right, so Medicare's access model could create new opportunities for pharmacist-led chronic care. We know this is also an issue in getting this.

I'd love to know if the opportunities are happening now. If you're noticing Medicare's access model could create these new opportunities for pharmacist-led chronic care, makes me think of C-P-E-S-N in the home state of Pennsylvania, the Pharmacist Care, Pharmacist, Pennsylvania Pharmacist Care Network. So this model emphasizes technology-supported management of chronic disease, including diabetes, hypertension, chronic pain, depression, with payments tied to outcomes rather than traditional dispensing activities. This is on top of dispensing activities. Participating pharmacists and pharmacies must meet applicable program and clinical requirements. This is exciting. You think this could help advance pharmacies' transition from dispensing-centered reimbursement towards sustainable payment for longitudinal and expansion of patient care? I think it could. And could outcome-based Medicare reimbursement become the first financial foundation for the next generation of independent pharmacies? That is the question. Pharmacy management system that's on top of this is one of our clients. It's on our network, Outcomes, outcomes.com. If you reach out to Outcomes, ask to speak to one of their consultants and ask the questions about getting paid.