Jun 22 2010
Los Angeles Times: Walgreens and Caremark announced Friday "they had settled a dispute that threatened to prevent thousands of people from filling their prescriptions at Walgreens stores." Caremark runs CVS stores and pharmacies. "At issue: the way Caremark, one of the nation's biggest prescription-plan operators, prices discounts for prescriptions filled at Walgreens pharmacies, which often compete fiercely with nearby CVS stores nationwide. … The dispute made clear that Walgreen and CVS Caremark depend on each other. Illinois-based Walgreen has 7,522 outlets and is the largest U.S. drugstore chain operator, slightly ahead of CVS. Rhode Island-based Caremark, which negotiates prescription benefit plans with employers nationwide, covers one out of every 10 Walgreens pharmacy customers, generating about $4.5 billion in revenue, Walgreen said." The sides had fought over what Caremark paid for prescriptions filled at Walgreens and in early June, Walgreens had said it would pull out of the Caremark prescription network. Last week's move averts this change (Oneal, 6/19).
 This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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