Medco Creates Prescription Drug Benefit Program For Small Labor Unions

Main Category: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 20 Aug 2007 - 16:00 PST

email to a friend   printer friendly   view / write opinions   rate article

Pharmacy benefit manager Medco Health Solutions, in response to a "trend in which smaller unions were being forced to consolidate their prescription drug programs with those of larger ones to obtain the same economies of scale," has created a pharmacy benefit program for unions with fewer than 20,000 members, the Bergen Record reports. The program, called the Medco Labor Coalition, comprises 46 unions with a total of more than 80,000 members and allows the unions to negotiate their own terms for drugs plans while maintaining their existing copayments and formularies.

Members have access to 24-hour assistance from specialist pharmacists for help with problems related to diabetes, heart disease, cancer and other common ailments. A prescription drug safety program also is available to members. In addition, members have access to Medco's online educational and drug comparison tools.

Most of the participating unions are located in upstate New York and Massachusetts, and Medco hopes to double its membership and expand to other states within the next 18 months, according to Frank Gentilella, vice president and general manager of Medco's labor unit (Prial, Bergen Record, 8/15).

"Reprinted with permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation . © 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.