Florida Agenda

BioScrip specialist pharmacy is moving from their five points location to a fantastic new facility in Wilton Station. For two decades they have been serving people with chronic disease and helping on a range of issues including, treatment options, insurance and convenient pick-ups of medications.

As they make their move they extend their commitment to helping and supporting the community in the crucial field of healthcare.

Please tell Agenda Readers What BioScrip is?

BioScrip, Inc. is a national clinical pharmacy service company dedicated to excellence in pharmacy care for patients living with chronic disease, like HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, oncology, rheumatoid arthritis, solid organ and bone marrow transplant, among others.  Our location at 1201 NE 26th Street, Bay 110, Wilton Manors, FL is a community based clinical pharmacy. We serve the local Ft. Lauderdale community by providing procurement, storage, and dispensing of specialty medicines, such as those that treat HIV/AIDS.

We are experts in pharmaceutical care and health promotion, our commitment to patients, physicians, healthcare payers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and the larger community, gives us the purpose we need to be the best.

Our mission is simple — to be America’s first choice clinical pharmacy company. This mission drives our passion for clinical excellence, customer focus and innovation spirit, promotes our commitment to integrity and marks our growth and success.

Please tell Agenda readers more about the services you offer?

We know how hard is can be to manage a complex health condition like HIV/AIDS. Our expert team of pharmacists, nurses, and customer service professionals are available nationally and in the local Ft. Lauderdale community to help our customers get the best results from their therapy by:

• Offering convenient prescription ordering via phone, fax or web
• Coordinating new and refill prescriptions
• Working with each customer to verify insurance benefit including Medicare and Medicaid
• Actively monitoring response to therapy and helping to manage medication symptoms and side effects
• Encouraging our customers to take their medication as prescribed
• Offering convenient access and coordination of financial assistance programs for qualifying customers and medications
• Offering free standard shipping on all medication orders not picked up at our store location

You are moving to a fantastic new location. What prompted the move?

The move was prompted by a strategic decision to expand our capacity within Florida to provide improved pharmacy service to our valued customers living complex conditions, like HIV/AIDs.

How do you feel the move will benefit your customers?

With more than a two decades experience focused exclusively on helping
persons with chronic disease, our existing and new customers within the local community can depend on BioScrip Specialty Pharmacy for around the clock confidential, pharmacy support, Insurance benefit coordination to verify eligibility and answer any questions regarding their medication benefit. From our new location we also offer Expert counseling on prescribed drugs and health condition. Syringes and medical supplies that are customized to the customers specific needs to help ensure proper administration of medication and Medication delivery, when and where it’s needed.

What differentiates BioScrip from other pharmacies?

Superior customer service, local community access, and a commitment to cost?effective care are why our customers choose BioScrip Specialty Pharmacy for their medication needs.

What are the advantages of being in the gay community?

We take great pride in helping to foster a true sense of community and stewardship.
It is through our specialized focus on patients living with complex chronic conditions like HIV/AIDS that makes us proud to be a leading provider of clinical pharmacy for the gay community.

What are your thoughts on proposed funding cuts for patients with HIV/AIDS?

State funding for treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS is an important component to overall community health.  Ongoing state budget cuts not only impact major HIV prevention and treatment centers, but also community programs that support disease prevention.  Impact of funding cuts may adversely impact certain persons living with HIV/AIDS, as some treatments can cost up to $2000 a month or more for ongoing therapy.

What steps have you taken to help within the community?

We take great pride in helping to foster a true sense of community and stewardship.
While we just getting settled into our new location, we look forward to grow ourselves as a pillar of the community and advocate of the diverse patients we serve.

What do you think is necessary to ensure affordable medication for everyone?

Access to affordable medications is a top priority for BioScrip and customers we serve.

Everyday people across the US and in our local community make the difficult choice between paying for medications or paying for other items that they need, like food or rent.
We are proud to help identify and coordinate financial support for our customers through patient assistance programs, also known as PAPs, that may be available. Patient assistance programs are special prescription support programs to help qualified patients receive prescription medications for free, or at a significantly reduced cost.

BioScrip Pharmacy is now located at 1201 NE 26th Street, Bay 110, Wilton Manors, FL.

For additional information, call 954-568-3789.

By John Sklba

Despite all they have done for me, my contemptuousness for weddings knows no bounds. Straight people, some even brilliant, actually, and quite foolishly believe some ancient mystical/magical ceremony will somehow bound them together, forever in, realms far beyond the ones us mere mortals inhabit. The astute individuals know what a prenuptial agreement is. With the national divorce rate over half at this point, I think its safe to say marriage serves little purpose beyond personal satisfaction in staking one’s relationship and some tax benefits that I, as a “bachelor until I die kinda guy”, will never fully understand.

Still if you want to walk down that aisle you can, unless you happen to be gay and then it’s all religious mumbo jumbo opposition. I hate to be the waver of the truth flag, wait, no I don’t hate it, I freaking love to do it, gays marry straight people all the time. Hell, some of those marriages are even contributing to the divorce rate. Just ask Fran Drescher of all people.

The reason gay people marry straight people seems as varied as the people involved. To not be a total uninformed nitwit writer who will never experience such things, research was conducted via this newfound contraption I overheard about last week called the Internet. Asking a forum of gays about the question provided feedback along the lines of my initial suspicions, but apparently, and make sure you tell everyone you know who uses the Internet for research this, people on the internet lie. So, admittedly, a little salt might be in my results. Pour it on the margarita rim if it is.

Getting married does offer a crucial key component for surviving in a world where twist and turns can occur suddenly without warning. Benefits. When people of opposite genders get married over 1,000 Federal benefits ranging from adoption to next of kin status kick in. A gay associate of mine was very happy for the laws of citizenship that prevented his deportation because he could marry a woman.

There is also this little thing called health care.

Information puts the statistic for companies offering same-sex benefits someplace around the low teens at tops. So if the product your employer makes kills millions and your idea of love matches their PR image, congratulations you can get benefits. Being gay means that cost burden for the doctor will probably fall directly on you. Actually acting as if you care about a woman might be worth it in that case.

For every good reason gay people decide to marry straight people, there are extremely negative aspects about the issue. It seems as if you portray anything other than a white Christian male and want to run for politics your odds of winning start dropping faster then pants at a Larry Craig bathroom party. Even if you’re not white and male, marrying the opposite gender puts an “acceptable” face on you to your fellow straight-laced neighbors the Jones’. It conveys something about your alleged normalcy.

Being perceived as normal is so important in this “image is reality” world that the results can be disturbing. Gays enter into loveless marriages with straights simply to avoid nagging questions that are really no ones business but their own. How these relationships are good for anyone’s psyche is beyond me. Is being alive and trapped better than being prosecuted, legally or otherwise. May no one reading this ever have to find out.

Of course there is also the gray side of the issue. What happens when after umpteen years of marriage you realize, hey, I’m gay. Between your partner(s), your kids, and you, feelings are going to get hurt.

There are websites devoted to this concept so if you are in that situation and need some help, advice, or support, know that it is out there on that world wide web thingy I mentioned earlier.

At some point in human history marriage evolved from an expression of love to a goal one should obtain. Not an equal to beating Super Mario Brothers, but something that can be accomplished all the same. In most cases it seems the goals for gays marrying straights is to simply get a luxuries society has decided to deny them, which sucks, but is certainly not as bad as it was fifty years ago. Evolution takes time folks. In the worst of cases they marry to perpetuate a lie for the benefit of….well no one as far as I can tell. Unless you’re pro the broken hearted.