Leading E-Prescribing Network Providers Merge Into SureScripts-RxHub
This article was originally published in The Pink Sheet Daily
Executive Summary
New company highlights single network point of contact for physician technology vendors.
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The two major providers of electronic prescribing networks - SureScripts and RxHub - are merging to provide a streamlined service and encourage both pharmacies and physicians to move into electronic transactions. The merger, announced July 1, also reflects an unusual alignment of groups often at odds with each other on both policy and business issues: pharmacy benefits managers, drug store chains and independent pharmacies. Individually, SureScripts and RxHub have handled separate steps in the e-prescribing transaction. RxHub, founded in 2001 by PBMs CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and Medco Health Solutions, brings expertise on patient identification and delivering drug benefit information to the physician at the point of care. SureScripts, also founded in 2001 by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and the National Community Pharmacists Association, handles routing the prescription from the physician office to the pharmacy. The new company will be managed by RxHub Acting CEO J.P. Little and SureScripts Acting CEO Rick Ratliff while a newly formed board of directors conducts a search for a permanent CEO. The six-member board is equally divided among representatives from RxHub and SureScripts. The combined company will handle almost all e-prescribing transactions, the merger announcement suggests. It says that the combination will process about 100 million electronic prescriptions in 2008 and respond to 70 million requests from physicians to confirm information about patients' drug coverage and prescription history. Last December, SureScripts issued a report assessing the state of e-prescribing, similarly forecasting a total of about 100 million total U.S. electronic scripts, up from 35 million in 2007. The 100 million represents about 7 percent of all new prescriptions and renewals. The merger, a cashless transaction, comes at a time when e-prescribing is a hot topic in health care policy and could add to that momentum. Incentives for e-prescribing are included in high-priority Medicare bills before Congress (1 (Also see "Baucus Medicare Bill Would Adopt E-Rx Payment Incentives, Penalties" - Pink Sheet, 3 Jun, 2008.)). The Drug Enforcement Administration also just proposed a rule aimed to remove barriers to e-prescribing of controlled substances (2 (Also see "DEA E-Prescribing Proposal Cites Electronic Physician Signatures Among Issues For Review" - Pink Sheet, 27 Jun, 2008.)). A single point of contact The new company, dubbed for now SureScripts-RxHub, hopes to remove more roadblocks by giving technology vendors a single point of contact for network usage. "One of the things that we believe this merger will address specifically is in supporting the physician technology vendors in a much more efficient manner," Ratliff said in an interview. He noted that until now, technology vendors would need to certify their products with both SureScripts and RxHub. Neither company develops end-user products. They simply provide the network connectivity that enables data transfer. "Each one of those [vendors] has had to contract with SureScripts and RxHub, has had to go through an implementation and certification process, and has had to go through supporting and deploying our different services with two organizations. Today they will be able to do it with one organization," Ratliff said. Ratliff added that having all the services integrated in a single network provider could lead to lower cost end-user products that can be deployed more quickly, which could in turn lead to higher use of e-prescribing. -Gregory Twachtman ([email protected]) |