President and CEO
Rita Baskett, RPh, MBA/MHA
Rita Baskett is a graduate of Long Island University’s Arnold and Marie Schwartz College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in 1996. Rita also graduated from Pfeiffer University with a dual Master in Business Administration and Master in Healthcare Administration in 2006. She is licensed to practice pharmacy in both North Carolina and New Jersey.
Rita served in an integral role at Premier, Inc. for over three years. As a pharmacist consultant, she has assisted many of Premier members in various consultant engagements and membership support. Her main focus revolved around the 340B program completing fee-based 340B mock HRSA compliance audits, implementation of 340B programs, assisting members with contract pharmacy business forecasting and implementations. She has also helped conduct ambulatory retail pharmacy analysis and PBM support for Premier hospital members. Rita has also supported and helped develop the 340B contract pharmacy service with Premier’s specialty mail-order pharmacy, Commcare. She also assisted Premier’s Regulatory Affairs division with regulatory and legislative initiatives involving GPO (group purchasing) and 340B pharmacy program.
Prior to Premier Rita served as Director of Pharmacy and Educational Services for the non-profit advocacy organization, 340B Health (previously known as Safety Net Hospitals for Pharmaceutical Access,) for two years. She provided guidance to 340B Health members and corporate partners on strategies to reduce cost and improve patient care including 340B implementation, the Medicare Part D program and patient assistance programs. She worked on advocacy and legislative initiatives with 340B Health's legal staff on the various issues relating to 340B program and patient assistance programs. She has spoken at many conferences related to 340B and patient assistance programs.
Rita has practiced extensively in the ambulatory care of pharmacy. She has over 20 years of pharmacy experience in retail, long term care, clinic-based pharmacy, and medication therapy management. She previously worked at Carolinas Healthcare System in which she managed their patient assistance program, bulk replenishment and audits, pharmacy chargemaster group, and the buyer of the 340B medications for the outpatient clinics. She had helped Carolinas save on average $10 million annually through patient assistance programs.
