No timetable set for PIN Rx sale

March 21, 2007

There is no set definite timetable for the completion of the sale of PIN Rx to I Care Pharmacy, according to Trish Riley, director of the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance.

I Care Pharmacy, a branch of T & G LLC located in Ft. Fairfield, is in the process of purchasing PIN Rx, which is under investigation for allegedly illegally filling Internet prescriptions for controlled substances. Two pharmacists who were working at PIN Rx when the allegations were made may face disciplinary action from the Maine Board of Pharmacy.

“I’m limited in what I can say right now about the (sale process),” Jerry Tanner, one of the owners of I Care Pharmacy, said on Monday. “There are some legality issues involved. But I do want people to know that the service will stay the same, and that our plan is to hire as many existing employees as possible.”

Tanner said that customers who dial the old PIN Rx number will now reach I Care Pharmacy.

“Why change the number when it will just confuse clients? We’re trying to maintain concurrency and stability,” he said.

Neal Pratt, public relations spokesman for PIN Rx, said that “past newspaper reports about (the pharmacy) have overstated the sale.”

“The sale of PIN Rx is in no way complete,” he said. “There is some structure to the deal, but as part of that structure, there are outstanding contingencies. It’s not guaranteed that the deal will be completed.”

Pratt said that, since making the decision to sell PIN Rx, the board’s number one priority has been to protect the pharmacy’s MaineCare clients.

“I think it says a lot about the kind of people that you’re dealing with, that PIN Rx has incurred a lot of private expense in order to make sure that service to MaineCare clients is not interrupted. That no one was left waiting for a prescription that was supposed to be filled,” he said.

Penobscot Indian Nation chief Kirk Francis agreed that the continuation of service to MaineCare clients was a top priority in the sale process.

            “Our stance has always been to protect our MaineCare clients,” he said.

PIN Rx first opened in 2006, two years after the Penobscot Indian Nation began applying for state and federal grants, aided in their endeavor by the Governor’s Office of Health Policy and Finance. The joint effort resulted in a $500,000 Rural Enterprise Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and a $400,000 economic development grant from the state.

The state office also played a major role in promoting the new pharmacy to Maine residents already enrolled in MaineCare, which is the state’s version of the federal health program known as Medicaid.

Following the allegations made against it last year, PIN Rx continued to operate with the help of a management agreement between the pharmacy and the state. That management agreement is still in place, Riley said.

“The decision to sell PIN Rx is a business decision that has nothing to do with (the state),” she said. “But there is a management agreement in place that allows us to continue to provide support (until the sale is final).”

Once the sale of PIN Rx does become final, the state will not provide any form of assistance to I Care Pharmacy other than contacting current MaineCare recipients regarding details of changes in the operation of the pharmacy.

I Care Pharmacy is based in Ft. Fairfield and is co-owned by Tanner and Terry Greenier, both natives of Ft. Fairfield, along with Heather Cassidy and Alan Wiseman, who work as pharmacists at the Ft. Fairfield site. Tanner and Greenier are business partners who own health care and pharmacy operations in Alaska that are worth about $20 million.

The Board of Pharmacy has scheduled a hearing on PIN Rx to take place in April.