From my inbox
Tying (informally, product tying) is the practice of selling one product or service as a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service. In legal terms, a tying sale makes the sale of one good (the tying good) to the de facto customer (or de jure customer) conditional on the purchase of a second distinctive good (the tied good). Tying is often illegal when the products are not naturally related. It relates to freebie marketing as a common (and legal) method of giving away (or selling at a substantial discount) one item to ensure a continual flow of sales of another related item.
Some kinds of tying, especially by contract, have historically been regarded as anti-competitive practices. The basic idea is that consumers are harmed by being forced to buy an undesired good (the tied good) in order to purchase a good they actually want (the tying good), and so would prefer that the goods be sold separately. The company doing this bundling may have a significantly large market share so that it may impose the tie on consumers, despite the forces of market competition. The tie may also harm other companies in the market for the tied good, or who sell only single components.
One effect of tying can be that low quality products achieve a higher market share than would otherwise be the case.
Tying may also be a form of price discrimination: people who use more razor blades, for example, pay more than those who just need a one-time shave. Though this may improve overall welfare, by giving more consumers access to the market, such price discrimination can also transfer consumer surpluses to the producer. Tying may also be used with or in place of patents or copyrights to help protect entry into a market, discouraging innovation.
Tying is often used when the supplier makes one product that is critical to many customers. By threatening to withhold that key product unless others are also purchased, the supplier can increase sales of less necessary products.
In the United States, most states have laws against tying, which are enforced by state governments. In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice enforces federal laws against tying through its Antitrust Division.
The DEA claims that they are not causing this with the wholesalers…but.. the information from the wholesalers states otherwise… the same seems to hold true with pharmacies..
Since DEA is part of DOJ.. and this is a violation of Sherman that is suppose to be enforced by DOJ.. as is the ADA.. so are we at TWO AND COUNTING on the DEA’s policies strong arming their registrants into violating two separate FEDERAL LAWS ?
Filed under: General Problems
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-discrimination-against-patients-chronic-painful-disease-or-injuries-dea-pharmacies-and/zjzx2hpN
Wonder if this would apply to doctors that insist on injections in order to remain patients? Interesting thought. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. This hasn’t been a problem at my pharmacy since they refuse to fill prescriptions.
You all know the DEA and DOJ are just legal groups like the Mafia’s of the world ,they all sicken me so much so I’m pretty close to tapering off of every last medication I can do without and mind my own business before I piss off the wrong person and they send a hit man to shut me up for good. I can get under their skin but why do that, THEY DON’T CARE ABOUT US. We are better off dead to them,,, WE ARE DEAD TO THEM, we mean nothing to these people. That’s why the DEA is finding ways around our normal routine of filling pain medications,
(YOU MUST FILL A REGULAR SCRIPT FOR EVERY OPIOID SCRIPT ) that’s the biggest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard.
When I say Controlled Drugs I’m speaking of ones whose use and distribution is tightly controlled because of its abuse potential or risk. Controlled drugs are rated in the order of their abuse risk and placed in Schedules by the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
I don’t take blood pressure, cholesterol or diabetes medication, I get 3 scripts filled a month, one is for anxiety because of this crap our fellow DEA, DOJ Americans are putting us through. DEA addicts get this stuff for free from drug bust, they don’t have to get controlled meds filled at a pharmacy unless its a maintenance medication needing to show for insurance purposes . And their probably the worst addicts around , a working surviving every day addict. Drug addicts come in all sizes and races, working , non – working, functioning, non – functioning , so I better shut my mouth before a bullet comes flying through my window from a sniper paid to shut me up. I thought I would stir up the crap and make people respond.
John Henry
That’s,
You all know the DEA and DOJ are just legal groups unlike like the Mafia’s of the world.
John Henry
“The DEA is part of the DOJ’…..and we know who heads the DOJ….Rules (Sherman Anti Trust Act) apparently don’t apply to these people and truth has been absent from the top and all his minions since day 1 IMHO.
I thought ‘forcing’ them to do mail order was illegal if the community pharmacy was in a state that had an ‘any willing provider’ rule enacted..which means and someone correct me if I am wrong, if the community pharmacy has a contract with that insurance, they accept the reimbursement, they can fill all the scripts. These laws were enacted to prevent exactly this…Caremark, Medco and Express scripts from draining scripts from the community pharmacies and pretty much putting a wedge between the patient and his/her pharmacist. I’m not sure where in the state regs one would check…I believe this is a state legislature thing under pharmacy or medical or healthcare tags on one’s state website.
Wo is this illegal or not?this mom amd pop pharmacy i went to last month told for everynarcotic rx i jLH,
,,,,,,ad to have the SAME QUANTITY PILLS OF A NONNARCOTIC MED LOL what am i supposed to have filled with over 100 qty per month? ?anyway i went elsewhere since i didnt have enough for ny breakthrough rx i then took my long acting tx back along w 2 other non narcotic rxs w quantity totalling thevsame as the narcotic. I was then told they dont carry that narcotic lol even though i just took it therr a few days before and they looked at all ky prescriptions and ONLY mentionED THAT i had to have same quantities. SO SICK OF THIS BS. If this is illegal why like being discriminated against is it still allowed to be going on?i am moving up north partly due to this bs where my pain will be 1000 times worse w the feeezing cold weather and i will no longer be able to work or have any life thanks to this bs. This is not happening in the northern states so why here?why has noone been sued yet?
I had a patient today that asked for refills on her medications. She is a newish patient, she transferred her Rxs to me just a couple months ago because her daughter recommended me. I haven’t had any problems filling her meds for the past few months. Today, she needed a refill on two of them, Estrace and Ambien… Which I have filled at the same time the last few months. Today, I got a reject on the Estrace saying “Third fill, must fill maintenance medication via mail order”, while her zolpidem went through with no problems.. Just wondering what will happen next week when her lorazepam, norco, and blood pressure meds come due…
As Otto said, insurance is taking my non controlled drugs to their mail order pharmacy, leaving me with just the controlled drugs, while I just found out my chain subtracts all my controlled from my script count, and the patients are still calling me for advice and counseling because they can reach me right away instead of waiting FOREVER to reach a pharmacist at the mail order…
My work load keeps increasing, the credit and help I get from corporate is staying the same, and the PDMs are stealing the profitable parts of pharmacy to their own in house pharmacies…. The pharmacist shortage is over, and a surplus has appeared, pay is going down, we are all afraid of our bosses, corporate, and the DEA…. Something has to give, and since I refuse to give sub par service to my patients; I’m a PHARMACIST dammit! That something will just be my liver…
Yes, a friend of mine was told at a Mom/Pop pharmacy that he had to have another non opiate prescription to fill or else they wouldn’t fill the opiates.
The day I did the pharmacy crawl a month ago, the pharmacy that filled my script for a long acting opioid said the DEA was in his privately owned pharmacy saying he was filling too many control medications like the one I was having filled ,and not enough other scripts ,like blood pressure medication. They told him if he is going to fill a opioid script he must fill other scripts for the same patient. He said the DEA , 2 guys where standing right where you are now telling me this. So this story of Tying is true, this pharmacist was scared and said don’t come back unless you have at least two other scripts that are not a control medication. This is all a bunch of bullshit scaring pharmacist in to doing something illegal.
yeah, uh, mmm… i just need the oxy’s filled. i like got lots of antibiotics & stuff at home so don’t gimme them ones. ya.. just the oxy’s. you got watsons? i’m allergic to the qualitests. and i don’t want it on my insurance. i’ll pay cash.
btw, pain… i thought you didnt approve of cussing on this pulic forum.
Dipshits like you give me no other choice, I wrote the word bullshit once, crap once, that’s cussing to you, are you watching me waiting for me to write a cuss word, are you sampling your own customers Oxy’s.
Get a life Willy
Another part of the equation is that many insurance companies practically force many of these patients to get their chronic non controls through mailorder while they can’t supply the controls on a timely fashion. This has caused a much higher control to non control ratio in the community setting. Not necessarily that community is filling more controls as much as their non controls have been siphoned off. It also saddles the community pharmacy with this new increased scrutiny while distancing themselves from it