Received This Great Explanation on how some compounding pharmacies pay their sales reps commissions as a comment to a post and wanted to make sure readers were aware of it and to read the comments being posted in the comments section

Sue, Here is how the fraud works with these "COMPOUNDED PAIN CREAMS" - and why a sales rep can make "$50,000 - $500,000" a year: 1. The compounding pharmacy buys raw "active pharmacy ingredients" from Medisca, Letco Medical, PCCA, etc. 2. Medisca and these other companies set artificially high "Average Wholesale Prices (AWP)" for these ingredients, but then sell these ingredients for 1/10th the price (or lower) to the compounding pharmacy. So, a pharmacy may have ingredients in a compounded pain cream that have an AWP of $2,800 for a month supply (360 grams of cream), but their cost is less than $300 for that same medication. 3. These compounding pharmacies then bill insurance, including Medicare Part D, "the full price" based upon these artificially inflated AWP prices. 4. Some insurance companies pay 50 - 90% of the billed charges - thinking they "got a deal", but in reality, they got "exploited for financial gain", because the AWP price lists have nothing to do with on