As the son of two pharmacists, who has worked in or around a compounding pharmacy his entire life, the following brief summary of all that’s wrong with the compounding industry is spot on with its bullet points, but it, unfortunately, doesn’t do enough to separate the crooks from the reputable pharmacists.
There are criminals in every industry and compounding is not immune. I’m hoping the reaction of the government and the public isn’t to throw out the baby (pharmacies such as The Compounder in Aurora) with the bathwater (the creepy folks).
Although insurance schemes and workman’s comp fraud always have been rampant in our industry, pharmacies such as ours are consistently lumped in with shady pharmacies, no matter how ethical we are on our own as individual businesses. We can’t necessarily toot our own horns when we turn down potentially-criminal opportunities to make huge profits, but maybe that’s what it takes?
I recently got off the phone with an old friend, who runs a family-owned compounding pharmacy on the other side of the country. His dad, a pharmacist, said just the other day, “If you’re getting rich off running a pharmacy, you’re doing something wrong.” What does that mean? Simply, the only way to get rich in a pharmacy is to break the law. Period.
Even though I welcome the spotlight on our niche industry, I sincerely hope this kind of coverage helps improve the entire landscape by outing the bad players, while allowing the good ones to survive.
I’m anxious to see how the industry responds to being called out on the stuff ethical pharmacies have been screaming about for years. I hope the required change doesn’t take our family business down with it.
The recent piece on television’s Last Week Tonight with John Oliver covered several serious issues with some pharmacies around the country, including:
• Sanitation, or the discovery of insanitary conditions: Which is why you clean, clean again, and be sure to document that you’ve been cleaning, and then you prove that your facility and the compounded products that leave it, are clean.
• Quality: I can’t speak on other pharmacies, but our limits are plus or minus five percent. Whenever we discover a compound outside those limits, we learn why. But with anything, if we’re not working to ensure everything that leaves our door is what the doctor ordered and what you say it is, we’re avoiding compliance.
• Those crazy creams: Multiple active ingredient pain creams, and the insurance and workman’s comp compounds, are get-rich-quick schemes that have been going on for years, and there’s no evidence that simply adding another active ingredient will enhance a cream’s ability to manage pain.
• Fake names for patient-specific prescriptions: We are 100% patient-specific. We got fired from a few groups of clinics because we couldn’t fill their office-use prescriptions. Before the new regulations, a doctor could buy a large bottle of something she uses once or twice a week, for anyone who visited that doctor. We only fill prescriptions for real individuals with birthdates and addresses. Sure, it’s annoying to be compliant for something simple such as an office-use topical preparation that’s we’ve made for decades, but when the rules change, the rules change. If we ever filled an RX for Method Man, the only thing I would be able to do is to call and verify the address and birthdate and then try and get him to rap with me on the phone for a second because I love that guy. We don’t create the names of the patients. Criminals do.
• Voluntary 503b outsourcing facilities: It isn’t something we ever considered because we only make patient-specific prescriptions for individuals. John Oliver is correct, 503b should not be a voluntary program.
• Lack of oversight: We’ve only been seen by the State inspector once in the last 20 years because there haven’t been any complaints against us.
Although we do make pina colada flavored medications for parrots, Michael Bolton hasn’t had his bird’s scripts filled at The Compounder.
I really want my pharmacy and the compounding industry on the whole to understand how incredible John Oliver’s presentation is. Sure, there are curse words and we’re being made fun of, but it’s the best way to make it digestible!
We need compounding pharmacies and we need to be able to trust that they’re not hurting people.
Joel Frieders is a husband, father, and son. He helps run The Compounder pharmacy with his family in Aurora. He is co-owner of ELEMY, LLC, a development company, in Aurora, that specializes in rehabilitation construction projects and restaurants. A second term alderman in the United City of Yorkville, Joel’s initial focus as an elected official was getting the roads in his neighborhood completed, but with that finished in 2018, his consistent focus has been on talking about suicide and proactive mental health since 2017. He likes tacos, craft beer, and craft beer tacos.