Content about Inventory Information Approval System

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — This is one of the tweaks health reform needs to make it meaningful and to appropriately align all of the incentives in the right direction — and that's toward overall healthcare cost reduction. Because mandating a prescription in order that nonprescription medicines would be eligible expenses under either flexible spending accounts or health savings accounts just never made sense, intuitive or otherwise.

WASHINGTON — A panel of healthcare thought leaders has concluded that a recent IRS rule change going into effect Jan. 14, 2011, will demand retail system challenges that are operationally impossible to overcome in the limited time frame required.

And the National Association of Chain Drug Stores couldn’t agree more.

WASHINGTON The Internal Revenue Service earlier this month issued guidance reflecting statutory changes regarding the use of certain tax-favored arrangements, such as flexible spending arrangements, to pay for over-the-counter medicines and drugs.

NEW YORK Determining just how much FSAs are utilized in the purchase of OTCs has always been somewhat of a fuzzy science. Thanks to the U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation, we now have a government source suggesting that about $460 million per year in sales tax revenues would have been generated in the ensuing five years. Using state sales tax rates as of July 2009, the mean average tax across all 50 states plus the District of Columbia is 5.1%.