Express Scripts to boost pay for rural pharmacies

Express Scripts will increase reimbursement for independent rural pharmacies, whose ranks have continued to dwindle over the past decade.

Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager of insurer Cigna, plans to pay rural pharmacies that aren’t affiliated with a drug wholesaler more when they hit certain outcome-based metrics, such as ones related to drug adherence. The second-largest PBM by revenue will also pay independent pharmacies in…