This is a Sponsored post written by me on behalf of Walgreens for SocialSpark. All opinions are 100% mine.

I am a not a regular customer of Walgreens but my hubby and I occasionally buy stuff there. The latest product that we bought from them was a handheld electric massager. We had tried a few massagers from several other stores but none of them had the aggressive action that my hubby wanted so he took them all back. When we finally found the one at Walgreens, we were well pleased because it has a very firm massage and two different settings. We are very happy with it and use it quite often. We had not heard about the dispute between Walgreens and Express Script until just recently and it will probably not affect us much because my hubby gets most of his medications direct from the VA and I rarely need any.

Express Scripts is a company that acts as a middleman between pharmacies providing health care service and employers and their health plans. Last December 31^st, 2011 the contract between Walgreens and Express Scripts expired. For the past year, Walgreens had been negotiating with Express Scripts but the talks did not lead to an agreement. Both parties couldn’t find common ground and as of January 1^st, 2012, Walgreens is no longer a part of the Express Scripts network. This means that all Walgreens pharmacies nationwide and Duane Reade pharmacies in the New York City area are no longer included in the Express Scripts pharmacy network.

This means that Express Scripts participants will have to pay higher prices or be forced to go somewhere else besides Walgreens. To help ease the burden to those who are affected, Walgreens is offering a special discount on annual membership of the Walgreens Prescription Savings Club so that members can continue to get discounted rates on their medications.

If you are wondering if this dispute will affect you, talk to your local Walgreens pharmacy. One of the clients who is affected by the dispute between Walgreens and Express Scripts is the Tricare system. Tricare is the health care system provided by the government for retired and active US military personnel. Walgreens has tried hard to negotiate with Express Scripts by offering guaranteed prices that would match or beat the average costs per adjusted prescription of all other pharmacies in the Tricare network. Walgreens took this unprecedented step to prevent the military personnel from being caught in the middle.Unfortunately, both of these proposals were rejected by Express Scripts.

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