Weekend update

Congress remains in session on Capitol Hill this coming week. Here is a link to the Week in Congress's report on last week's activities, which included the passage of 18 House bills concerning opioid abuse.

Last week, the Partnership for Public Service released its annual report on best places to work in the federal government. OPM ranked in the middle for medium sized agencies.

The FEHBlog ran across a Pharmalot post. Pharmalot is a blog that previously appeared on the Wall Street Journal site but now is now on the Boston Globe's Stat site. In any event, Pharmalot reports that "a new study found that Americans spent an extra $73 billion between 2010 and 2012 on pricier brand-name drugs because physicians failed to sufficiently recommend these copycat treatments to their patients. And consumers paid nearly one-third of those additional costs through out-of-pocket payments." Hopefully the implementation of electronic prescription tools is remediating this problem.

Also on the pharmacy front, Walgreen's is adding telemental visits to its app and website and is providing mental health treatment training to its pharmacists. Walgreen's mental health website also provides a link to these mental health screening tools provided by Mental Health America.