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February 11, 2005
Medco, Automakers and Michigan Health Plans Band Together to Create e-Prescribing Test Bed
WardsAuto.com - PR Newswire Industry News
WED Feb 09 2005, 02:50 PM
Medco, Automakers and Michigan Health Plans Band Together to Create e-Prescribing Test Bed
Southeast Michigan e-Prescribing Initiative to Equip Thousands of Physicians
with Technology Tools to Improve Safety and Reduce Costs
FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Medco Health
Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MHS), in collaboration with the Big Three automakers
and Michigan health plans, will coordinate one of the largest, employer-driven
e-Prescribing initiatives to validate the impact of technology on improving
patient safety and reducing prescription drug costs, the company announced
today.
The Southeast Michigan e-Prescribing Initiative (SEMI) is a far-reaching
electronic prescribing collaboration, spearheaded by General Motors, Ford
Motor Company, and DaimlerChrysler Corp., that is designed to equip as many as
17,000 physicians with e-Prescribing technology tools. Medco, the pharmacy
benefit manager (PBM) for these corporations, will leverage its vast
experience with e-Prescribing technology to coordinate the implementation of
the initiative across automakers, e-Prescribing technology vendors and
southeast Michigan health plans.
"Medco has long championed e-Prescribing as a critical component of
modernizing the prescription healthcare system. This initiative is an
important step forward in the effort to improve patient safety and contain
drug spending. As the pharmacy benefit manager for General Motors, Ford and
DaimlerChrysler, we will continue to offer our expertise and support to these
next-generation initiatives," said David B. Snow Jr., Medco's chairman,
president and CEO.
The initiative encourages physicians to write prescriptions on a personal
computer or wireless device and send them directly to the pharmacy for
filling. Electronic prescribing provides physicians with real-time access to
important safety and coverage information when making prescribing decisions.
The benefits of e-Prescribing include:
-- Reducing potentially harmful drug interactions by alerting physicians
of possible risks
-- Eliminating illegible physician hand-written prescriptions that can
lead to medication errors
-- Increasing the use of generics and preferred drugs by providing
physicians with formulary information when writing the prescription,
resulting in savings for both the patient and insurer
-- Eliminating patient wait time at the pharmacy by furnishing
physicians with benefit plan details at the point of prescribing so
that changes won't be needed when the prescription's being filled.
As precursor to the overall program, Henry Ford Health System implemented
e-Prescribing in January 2005 through a collaboration with the Henry Ford
Medical Group, an 800-member group practice, and its insurance arm, Health
Alliance Plan (HAP). With technology already in place for 25 physicians,
Henry Ford anticipates more than 100 physicians will be using the
DrFirst Rcopia e-Prescribing software by the end of March.
The launch at Henry Ford is just the first example of what is planned
across Michigan. In addition to HAP, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan will
implement the program with 6,400 physicians in its Blue Preferred Plus
program.
Each of the health plans and employers, in consultation with Medco, will
develop a secure, HIPAA-compliant (adhering to the legislative rules
concerning patient privacy), integrated patient data infrastructure that
allows patient prescription and medical data to be checked for potential
errors as a medication is prescribed. By providing integrated patient data
across medical, pharmacy and diagnostic channels, both ambulatory and
institutional clinicians will have access to relevant patient data in a
secure, password-protected environment.
Medco and e-Prescribing
Currently, Medco is involved with several partnerships with electronic
prescribing vendors to give more than 15,000 physicians access to Medco's
pharmacy database via RxHub, LLC - a portal that supports the secure,
bi-directional exchange of patient-specific prescribing information between
physicians and benefit managers and the transmission of the electronic
prescriptions to mail and retail pharmacies. In 2001, Medco was part of a
group of PBMs that launched RxHub. RxHub will be the portal used in the SEMI
pilot.
Medco has also conducted significant research on the impact of
e-Prescribing on improving patient safety and reducing costs. A Medco study
of physicians using e-Prescribing technology found that physicians using the
devices increased their generic substitution rates by over 15 percent and
their generic dispensing rates by over 8 percent. According to the Managed
Care Institute, every one percent increase in the nation's generic
prescription utilization rate would generate savings of $1.3 billion; generic
drugs can cost as much as 70 percent less than brand name medications.
Additionally, a 2003 Medco study showed that the implementation of an
electronic prescribing system with health plan coverage messaging led to a
42 percent reduction in the number of pharmacy calls to the physicians'
office, with a 30 percent reduction in calls related to prescription
illegibility.
About Medco
Medco Health Solutions, Inc., a leading pharmacy benefit manager with the
nation's largest mail order pharmacy operations, assists its customers to
moderate the cost and enhance the quality of prescription drug benefits
provided to members nationwide. Its customers include private- and public-
sector employers and healthcare organizations. Medco is traded on the New
York Stock Exchange under the symbol MHS. On the Net: http://www.medco.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is
defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These
statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ
materially from those set forth in the statements. No forward-looking
statement can be guaranteed, and actual results may differ materially from
those projected. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward-
looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or
otherwise. Forward-looking statements in this presentation should be
evaluated together with the risks and uncertainties that affect our business,
particularly those mentioned in the Risk Factors section of the Company's
Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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