Walgreen Co is adding live chats with pharmacists and other features to its website to get shoppers to spend more time and money online and in its drugstores. While Walgreen has had a website since 1998, some of its services were behind the times when Sona Chawla joined as the chain's first senior vice president of e-commerce in 2008.

Upgrades, such as express refills and an iPhone application, have been added this year and more are pla nned. "The goal is really to help the customer stay within the walls of Walgreens," Chawla said during an interview at the company's Deerfield, Illinois headquarters. Walgreen's online sales have grown in a high double-digit range for a few years and the company hopes to increase that growth rate, Chawla said. Overall, Walgreen's sales typically rise in a single-digit range.

E-commerce now has its own division at Walgreen. Chawla's team started a Facebook page and has been sending tweets on the Twitter social networking site to update Walgreen's online image. A recent offer for a free photo book on Facebook got a "great" response, she said. The online push comes as Walgreen pushes to promote itself, including in new national television commercials. Under Greg Wasson, who became chief executive in February, the company is trying to become more focused what shoppers want and is speaking more publicly about issues such as healthcare reform.

Meanwhile, it faces s tepped up competition from retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc, which has started selling health and beauty products online with 97 cent shipping. Meanwhile, smaller sites such as drugstore.com inc and Alice.com sell basic toiletries and household goods that shoppers usually stop at drugstores for, with free shipping. "Online, everyone is a competitor," Chawla said. While the company is focused on health and wellness, it is also making a bigger push online in general merchandise. Walgreen.com launched its first holiday shop this month with daily deals and products such as one of Chawla's favorite quirky items -- an elf costume for pets. The $16.99 costume is only being sold on the site, not in stores.

Shoppers with iPhones can now send photos saved on their cellphones to stores for printing, refill prescriptions and find stores and Take Care clinics with a GPS-based locater. Online shoppers can also check if items are in stock in their local stores. Walgreen is also promoting certain vendors online. L'Oreal SA has its own a page with beauty tips, while Novartis AG's Prevacid has a page with details on heartburn. "We're going to be doing this with a select number of others," Chawla said, declining to name future additions

A pilot, launched earlier this week, lets consumers chat online with pharmacists. Previously, consumers could email their questions to pharmacists through the site. About 30 percent of the items Walgreen sells online, such as some medical equipment, are not sold in its more than 7,000 drugstores. That percentage should grow as Walgreen adds vitamins, over-the-counter medications, beauty, skin care and personal care items and other products to the site. Traffic on Walgreens.com jumped more than 30 percent in fiscal 2009, according to Chawla. Walgreens is the top drugstore website according to data the company provided from Compete.com.

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The Deloitte Consumer Spending Index rose in November to its highest level since 2004, driven largely by the decrease in initial unemployment claims along with historically low tax levels. The index, comprising four components, including tax burden, initial unemployment claims, real wages and real home prices, rose to 4.63%, from an upwardly revised gain of 4.25% a month ago. "The index continues a recent six-month climb due to improvement across the board in consumer fundamentals," said Carl Steidtmann, chief economist with Deloitte Research, a subsidiary of Deloitte Services LP, and author of the monthly index. "Real earnings remain on the rise due to falling prices while the housing market continues to show signs of stabilizing. A decline in initial unemployment claims has historically been a reliable signal of economic recovery, and in recent months, initial claims have continued downward. These factors may give retailers and suppliers reason for optimism going forward."

"While the recent gains in consumer spending have been encouraging, they are on the moderate side as a result of ongoing consumer caution," added Stacy Janiak, vice chairman and Deloitte's U.S. Retail leader. "With household credit conditions remaining weak, retailers may consider offering financing or other services to provide consumers with needed access to credit, along with convenient and flexible payment terms. These services may include layaway, co-branded store cards, online payment options and deferred billing, for example."

The United States ranks near the bottom in life expectancy among wealthy nations despite spending more than double per person on health care than the industrialized world's average, an economic group said Tuesday. Life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 78.1 years in 2007, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's a year less than the OECD average of 79.1, and puts the U.S. just ahead of the Czech Republic, Poland and Mexico, where spending on health care is many times less per person, the Paris-based organization said in its latest survey of health trends among its 30 rich member countries.

Total U.S. spending on health care was $7,290 a person in 2007, nearly two-and-a-half times the OECD average of $2,984. The figures include spending by both individuals and governments. Spending on health care in the U.S. grew more quickly betwe en 1997 and 2007 than in France, Italy, Germany and Spain, averaging 3.4 percent annually over the period. The U.S. growth rate was still below the OECD average of 4.1 percent. The U.S. far outspent the next biggest health care spenders, Norway and Switzerland, despite the fact that those countries' life expectancies are two to four years longer, according to the report. The report notes that, in addition to the U.S., Denmark and Hungary also have lower life expectancies than would be predicted by their relative wealth and levels of health care spending.

On the other hand, the Japanese and the Spanish live longer on average than their national income and their health care spending would predict. The U.S. also underperforms other rich countries in the health of its youngest. U.S. infant mortality, at 6.7 deaths per 1,000 live births, was well above the OECD average of 3.9 in 2007. Only Mexico and Turkey had worse rates of infant mortality. In Luxembourg, the top per former, the infant mortality rate was only 1.8. The report noted that research suggests many factors beyond the quality of a country's health system, such as income inequality and individual lifestyles and attitudes, influence infant mortality rates.

Per capita spending on pharmaceuticals rose by almost 50 percent over the last 10 years in OECD countries, reaching a total of $650 billion in 2007. The U.S. was the world's biggest spender on pharmaceuticals, spending $878 per person, with Canada next at $691 per person and the OECD average at $461. The report was released as the U.S. Senate is considering a health care overhaul promised by President Barack Obama during his presidential campaign

Nearly one week after the Food and Drug Administration's enforcement actions against the operators of Web sites selling illegal and misbranded medical products, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores sent a letter to the agency applauding its efforts. The letter expresses the association's concern about these Internet sites, both domestic and foreign, that are engaged in a pattern of illegal activity regarding the prescribing and dispensing of prescription medications. The letter states, "These illegal, rogue Internet sites take advantage of consumers by luring them into illegal schemes to obtain prescription drugs, often controlled substances, without a prescription or valid patient-prescriber relationship. These Internet sites are not pharmacies."

Last week, the FDA's Office of Criminal Investigations, in conjunction with the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research and the Office of Regulatory Affairs, Office of Enforcement, targeted 136 Web sites that appeared to be engaged in the illegal sale of unapproved or misbranded drugs to U.S. consumers. None of the Web sites are for pharmacies in the United States or Canada.

Walgreens reported a surge in monthly sales ended Nov. 30. The drug store chain reported sales of $5.36 billion, an increase of 8.7% from $4.93 billion for the same month in 2008. Sales in comparable stores (those open at least a year) increased 3.9%. Meanwhile, Walgreens reported a 9.7% increase in pharmacy sales, though comparable pharmacy sales were negatively impacted by 2.4 percentage points due to generic drug introductions in the last 12 months. Pharmacy sales accounted for 65% percent of total sales for the month.

The drug store chain also reported that sales were "notably softer" this year's Thanksgiving weekend. Calendar year-to-date sales were $58.6 billion, an increase of 7.7% from $54.4 billion in 2008. During the month of November, Walgreens opened 47 stores, including seven relocations, and acquired two stores. At Nov. 30, Walgreens operated 7,648 locat ions in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Guam. That includes 7,147 drug stores, 517 more than a year ago, including 60 stores acquired over the last 12 months.

Seniors may find that many common prescription drugs that Medicare Part D has covered for years suddenly may be denied due to a new policy being implemented by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. To minimize disruption on patients and pharmacies, the American Pharmacists Association, Food Marketing Institute, Healthcare Distribution Management Association, National Association of Chain Drug Stores, and National Community Pharmacists Association have written a letter to CMS acting administrator Charlene Frizzera, outlining concerns and potential remedies, and urging the agency to continue its outreach to stakeholders.

On Jan. 1, CMS is scheduled to begin enforcing its nonmatched National Drug Code list policy. At that time any medication not appropriately registered with the Food and Drug Administration will no longer be covered under Part D. With this deadline f ast approaching, thousands of products are currently included on the nonmatched NDC list and, thus, scheduled to be denied by Medicare Part D plans in a few weeks. "We strongly encourage you to continue outreach to manufacturers whose products are on the non-matched list as well as Part D plans," the groups wrote. "We also strongly urge CMS to consider holding an open door forum as soon as possible in order to capture concerns of all interested stakeholders. Although we have communicated with our respective supply chain partners, ultimately, the manufacturer bears the responsibility to register their products appropriately with the FDA and with Part D plans to ensure their formularies and edits reflect CMS policies in a timely fashion."

The groups' other concerns include:

• Patient Disruption - Patients may be denied medication they have obtained under Part D for years. The coalition recommends a standard CMS fact sheet or similar document, available online, to help pharmacists answer beneficiaries' questions.
  
  
• Supply Chain Concerns - Denying access to one generic drug will likely increase demand for equivalent generics, of which sufficient supply may not be readily available. Such supply chain issues further endanger beneficiary access.
  
  
• Inconsistent Implementation by Part D Plans - Some Part D plans may employ point-of-sale (POS) edits at the pharmacy level to block dispensing of unlisted drugs, but others may not, frustrating patients and pharmacists alike. To promote consistency in implementation, the coalition recommends that CMS either update the CMS non-matched NDC list on a more frequent basis or require plans to utilize the FDA's NDC list to keep POS edits current."
  
  
• Retroactive Reversal of Claims - The coalition urges CMS to prohibit retroactive reversal of approved claims for NDCs that appear on the non-matched list. These claim reversals would be unfair to pharmacies that dispensed the medications pursuant to plans' approval of claims at the point of sale.

The groups have also urged brand and generic drug manufacturers to step up their efforts to ensure their products' NDCs are registered with the FDA, as evidenced by a Nov. 17 letter from NCPA to their trade associations.

A mass merchandise chain in the Midwest will take part in a statewide drug-disposal program in Iowa. Pamida, which operates 207 stores in the Midwest, including 142 that have pharmacies, announced that it would participate in the Iowa TakeAway Program, which the state government set up to make it easier for patients to dispose of unused medications properly rather than flushing them down the toilet or throwing them in the trash.

Some studies have shown that the tap water of more than 40 million Americans is contaminated with improperly discarded pharmaceuticals. In response, Iowa's state legislature passed a law that created the Iowa TakeAway Program, which the Iowa Pharmacy Association and Houston-based Sharps Compliance Corp. launched last month. "We are very excited to partner with the Iowa TakeAway Program and are pleased to be able to offer this service to our custo mers," Pamida VP pharmacy Jeff Walsh sstated. "Pamida's participation in the Iowa TakeAway Program promotes a cleaner environment and provides our customers with an accessible and convenient method for disposal of their unused medications." Under the program, customers bring their unused medications - which can include oral solids or liquids and topical medications in quantities up to 4 oz. - to community pharmacies, which put them in a Sharps Compliance RxTakeAway System parcel and ship them to Sharps Compliance's Carthage, Texas, incinerator for destruction