Almost 15,000 independent pharmacies can now rejoin Tricare's retail pharmacy network, in today's bite-sized hospital and health industry news from the District of Columbia, Maryland, Minnesota, and South Dakota.

• District of Columbia: Almost 15,000 independent pharmacies will be given the opportunity to rejoin Tricare's retail pharmacy network. According to Express Scripts officials, the move is a response to Kroger's Sept. 30 announcement that 2,200 pharmacies across 35 states would leave the network. As of Oct. 24, 14,963 of 55,586 retail pharmacies dropped out of the Tricare network—a loss that impacted an estimated 400,000 beneficiaries, according to the National Community Pharmacists Association. "We constantly evaluate ways to improve access and choice for those we serve, so as a result of Kroger's recent notice that they will no longer participate in the Tricare pharmacy network, independent pharmacies that declined our previous invitation will be given another chance to consider participating," said Tom Jenkins, Express Scripts' VP of account management for Department of Defense programs. Beneficiaries who use out-of-network pharmacies will have to pay full price for their medications, then file for reimbursement. "Even without Kroger's participation, nearly all Tricare beneficiaries have an in-network pharmacy within a 15-minute drive of their home, but we are always working to provide more choice to our members and look forward to welcoming additional independent pharmacies back into the network," Jenkins added. (Jowers, Military Times, 11/14)

• Maryland: CMS on Monday released three voluntary sample wide, tall, and plain formats to help hospitals comply with the federal requirement to make specific standard changes available to the public in a machine-readable file. In addition, CMS posted a sample data dictionary for the wide and tall formats. (AHA News, 11/15)

• Minnesota/South Dakota: Sanford Health and Fairview Health Services on Tuesday announced that they signed a letter of intent to establish a $14 billion health system. Under the agreement, Sanford Health would have access to a major metropolitan market in the Twin Cities, including the University of Minnesota Medical School. "We are confident that we can bring together an organization with a deeply rooted level of expertise around providing rural healthcare with an organization with a deep level of expertise around providing care in metro and urban committees to better serve patients," said Sanford Health President and CEO Bill Gassen. Under the deal, which is expected to close in 2023, Gassen would lead the combined company under the Sanford Health name as president and CEO. After the deal closes, Fairview Health CEO James Hereford would be co-CEO for one year. Both companies would retain their regional presence, leadership, and boards in their markets. (Kacik, Modern Healthcare, 11/1