The Globe and Mail reports in its Monday, July 8, edition that the head of the Ontario Pharmacists Association says teachers with certain chronic conditions should not be limited to purchasing from their insurance plan's in-house pharmacy. The Globe's Chris Hanny and Susan Krashinsky Robertson write that the Ontario Teachers Insurance Plan last year set up the pharmacy, MemberRx, with help from Cubic Health, to be the exclusive supplier of some high-cost drugs to its members. The Ontario College of Pharmacists, which is the provincial regulator for pharmacies, is set to discuss MemberRx in a board meeting Monday and hear from a teacher who is fighting an attempt to transfer her prescriptions to the pharmacy. OPA head Justin Bates says his association is concerned with MemberRx and similar restrictive arrangements because it forces patients to work with specific health-care providers. He says patients in that situation cannot make choices based on which pharmacists they feel most comfortable with. OTIP's arrangement is an example of patient steering, which has received renewed attention since Manulife Financial and Loblaw's Shoppers Drug Mart signed -- and then scrapped -- an exclusivity deal earlier this year.