Medco Earns Accreditation From Independent Health Care Evaluator
FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., Oct. 3 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Medco Health Solutions, Inc., today announced it earned URAC’s inaugural Pharmacy Benefit Management Accreditation, which helps assure employers, health plans and consumers that Medco is clinically focused and meets quality standards for consumer protection and empowerment.
“URAC is among the country’s pre-eminent independent evaluators of quality in health care, and this accreditation recognizes Medco’s leadership in developing programs that engage our patients with consumer-driven choices that improve their health, while at the same time lower the cost of care for our clients,” said Roger Anderson, Medco’s Chief Pharmacist and senior vice president.
The URAC accreditation is the latest addition to Medco’s extensive list of industry recognitions, which includes accreditation from the Joint Commission, another nationally renowned, independent reviewer of clinical health capabilities. The Joint Commission also recognized Medco with its highest honor, the prestigious Ernest A. Codman Award, for re-engineering pharmacy processes to dramatically reduce medication dispensing errors and improve patient safety.
“The URAC accreditation standards were developed by a team of health care experts who buy, pay for and manage pharmaceutical programs, along with those who prescribe, dispense, and use the medications. Accreditation is a validation that companies that obtain the URAC seal are committed to quality and are willing to be accountable throughout their operations,” said Alan P. Spielman, URAC’s president and chief executive officer.
The URAC process included rigorous on-site evaluation and assessment by a URAC accreditation team and review and consideration by URAC’s Accreditation Committee.
In addition to the URAC accreditation in Pharmacy Benefit Management, Medco is pursing a supplemental URAC accreditation in Drug Therapy Management.
Medco has a long history of forging new frontiers in pharmacy: creating one of the PBM industry’s most comprehensive online pharmacies that enables members to identify cost-savings opportunities based on their personal pharmacy benefit plan; integrating advanced, patented technologies into its dispensing pharmacies, widely regarded as the world’s largest and only fully automated dispensing pharmacy; and, most recently, launching a new era of advanced pharmacy practice with specialist pharmacists — hundreds of licensed Medco pharmacists who receive special training in specific chronic conditions. Medco’s specialist pharmacists work in the Medco Therapeutic Resource Centers(R), which are pharmacies devoted to specific chronic and complex conditions, including diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease and pulmonary conditions. With this training and concentrated practice, Medco’s specialist pharmacists can offer deeper, more specific guidance if a medication safety issue arises.
About Medco
Medco Health Solutions, Inc. is the nation’s leading pharmacy benefit manager based on its 2006 total net revenues of more than $42 billion. Medco’s prescription drug benefit programs are designed to drive down the cost of pharmacy health care for private and public employers, health plans, labor unions and government agencies of all sizes, and for individuals served by the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program. Medco’s technologically advanced mail-order pharmacies and award-winning Internet pharmacy have been recognized for setting new industry benchmarks for pharmacy dispensing quality. Medco serves the needs of patients with complex conditions requiring sophisticated treatment through its specialty pharmacy operation, which became the nation’s largest with the 2005 acquisition of Accredo Health, Incorporated. Medco is the highest-ranked independent pharmacy benefit manager on the 2007 Fortune 500 list. 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 press release 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.
Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
CONTACT: Lowell Weiner, Medco Health Solutions, +1-201-269-6986,lowell_weiner@medco.com; or Bill Borden, Coyne Public Relations, +1-973-939-2835, bborden@coynepr.com
Web site: http://www.medco.com/