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Merck-Medco and ChannelHealth Partner for ePrescription Services at Point of Care; Technology Improves Patient, Physician and PBM Relationship; Industry Evolving to a Single Standard
Business Wire, Feb 2, 2000
Business &Technology Editors
FRANKLIN LAKES, NJ, and BURLINGTON, VT--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- February 2, 2000
Merck-Medco Managed Care, L.L.C., the technology leader in pharmaceutical benefit management (PBM), and ChannelHealth, a pioneer of personalized Internet services for the healthcare industry, today announced a multi-year agreement to automate the complex processes associated with formulary management and prescription fulfillment at the point of care for Merck-Medco members. The agreement will provide ChannelHealth customers with access to Merck-Medco's proprietary system and to unique information regarding patients and benefit plans available only from Merck-Medco.
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Merck-Medco is working with ChannelHealth, a subsidiary of IDX Systems Corporation (Nasdaq: IDXC), to enhance the ChannelHealth MedWorks(TM) application, which is designed to proactively manage benefit plan compliance with online notification to the physician when a patient fails to refill prescriptions for chronic medications. ChannelHealth and Merck-Medco expect this enhanced service to significantly improve patient, physician and PBM relationships by allowing physicians to interactively review a patient's
medication history and health plan coverage in order to select the most clinically appropriate medication while ensuring attention to the patient's co-pay.
&uot;Merck-Medco envisions a single industry standard in point-of-care technology and physician connectivity to streamline the flow of clinical data among physicians, patients, pharmacies and PBMs,&uot; said Per Lofberg, Chairman, Merck-Medco. &uot;We believe our agreement with ChannelHealth is a significant step in our continuous effort to improve the quality of patient care, enhance physician prescribing capabilities, improve plan and formulary compliance, and reduce the overall cost of healthcare. We believe ChannelHealth's solution will effectively use medication information to strengthen the physician/patient relationship and we have confidence in ChannelHealth's ability to volume deploy the MedWorks service.&uot;
&uot;With point-of-care access to an e-prescription system, physicians can check health plan rules, and generate the prescription during the patient's visit,&uot; said Pamela Pure, Chief Operating Officer of ChannelHealth. &uot;Merck-Medco is a leader in providing affordable drug care and serves 1 out of every 5 Americans. With Merck-Medco, we expect to develop a world class connection between the physician's office and the pharmacy benefit manager and enable our service to cover a large percentage of Americans. We are excited about the opportunity to pioneer this capability with Merck-Medco.&uot;
The agreement brings together ChannelHealth, which markets its services to the 118,000 physicians in the IDX customer base, and Merck-Medco, which serves the healthcare benefits of 51 million Americans through its proprietary technology linking patients, pharmacists and physicians and facilitating appropriate drug use based on individual health profiles, best clinical practices and benefit plan coverage. The agreement is a significant milestone in ChannelHealth's strategy to provide Internet-based tools to physician practices to automate clinical workflow and facilitate the delivery of personalized patient care via the Internet.
How It Works
ChannelHealth's MedWorks application for prescription/drug management is designed to help achieve gains in physician office practice efficiency, through better decision-making with more complete information. MedWorks allows physicians to manage medications online and reduce unexpected drug-to-drug interactions, improper dosing, and medication errors resulting from illegible handwriting.
Through the Merck-Medco ChannelHealth agreement, physicians using ChannelHealth's MedWorks will have access via the Internet to integrated information prescription benefit management rules and pertinent patient medication history available exclusively from Merck-Medco. The service will also provide interactive messaging on formulary alternatives and clinical and benefit plan rules, significantly reducing the number of calls from the PBM to the physician's office.
Today, physicians are asked to check paper-based formularies for all medications that they prescribe a time-consuming task that may be omitted from the care process. When non-complying drugs are prescribed, patients arrive at the pharmacy to discover that they are expected to pay a higher fee than if a covered drug had been indicated, or they may have to wait while calls are made to change the prescription. The paper and phone based system results in higher administrative costs to the PBM and insurance company, higher costs to the patient, and ultimately, frustration on the part of everyone involved.
With the Merck-Medco ChannelHealth solution, physicians who use MedWorks know--at the point of care--if the drugs are covered. The prescription can be transmitted electronically and the patient understands cost implications prior to leaving the physicians' office. The result will be increased patient satisfaction, and lower costs to patients, physicians, PBMs, and insurance companies.
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