pharmacies

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February 7, 2012 | 10:15 AM |

Checking Your Sperm Count With Help From The Local Pharmacy

Is your sperm up to the task?

Soon, along with picking up prescriptions and getting a flu shot, men will be able to purchase a quick fertility test at the neighborhood drugstore.

Bloomberg reports that starting in April, Walgreen’s and CVS will sell a new product, SpermCheck, which will enable men to determine if they are fertile enough to get women pregnant. It’s being marketed as a way to “bridge the fertility gap” in which the burden is currently on women to establish their fertility.

In April, Walgreen’s 7,800 U.S. stores plan to start selling a fertility test that determines if a man is producing enough sperm to get a woman pregnant. Walgreen and CVS have already started selling SpermCheck Fertility online.

The blue-and-gold box, which features a smiling couple holding a newborn, will join more than two dozen varieties of female fertility tests in Walgreen stores. SpermCheck’s owner and distributor, closely held ContraVac Inc., is banking on women dropping an extra $40 for the test when they buy ovulation and pregnancy kits for themselves. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Personal Health, fertility, pharmacies, sperm count
January 5, 2012 | 9:27 AM |

Some Walgreens Customers Must Find New Pharmacy

A dispute between Walgreens and Express Scripts over the cost of drugs will impact about 1 million consumers.

By Martha Bebinger
WBUR

If you’re used to pulling into your local Walgreens to pick up a prescription, you’d better check the card you show the cashier.  Roughly a million Massachusetts residents who use their Express Scripts card to fill prescriptions can no longer do so at Walgreens.

Many employers use a separate company to track prescriptions employees fill.  Express Scripts is one of those companies.  It stopped doing business with Walgreens on January 1, claiming that Walgreens’ charges are 20% more than competing pharmacies.

Express Scripts spokesman Brian Henry says “our clients expect us to deliver a low cost high quality pharmacy benefit and having one provider whose rates are much higher than anyone elses runs counter to that.”

Henry says switching pharmacies is as easy as taking your prescription bottle to another drug store and asking the pharmacist to call Walgreens. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Insurance, cost, drugs, pharmacies