FHP Inc. to Offer Mail-Order Prescriptions to Members : Health care: St. Louis-based firm will provide delivery services and pharmacy data management for Fountain Valley care provider.
FHP Inc. said Tuesday that it will begin offering mail-order pharmaceutical services to its 725,000 members under an exclusive agreement with a St. Louis-based company.
Express Scripts Inc. is expected to start offering mail-order delivery to the Fountain Valley managed care provider’s members by Jan. 4, FHP officials said. FHP members will then get a choice between going to the pharmacy to get a prescription filled or ordering it by mail.
FHP’s 250,000 Medicare beneficiaries are expected to be the biggest users of the new service because they won’t have to travel to the drugstore or doctor’s office to get a prescription filled.
“For our senior (members), especially those on a fixed income, it’s a great savings and more convenient,” said Gary Goldstein, FHP’s senior vice president of health care delivery. “It is a natural extension to our pharmacy program.”
Under the agreement, FHP will get shares of Express Scripts stock through a private placement, as well as an interest in a newly formed subsidiary of Express Scripts, ESI West.
Although the savings would vary, FHP officials said that a member with a chronic illness requiring regular medication could expect to pay two co-payments for a three-month’s supply of a prescription, rather than the current three co-payments. For example, a member ordering through the mail will now pay $10 for a 90-day prescription. By going to the pharmacy, that member would have to pay $15.
The agreement also calls for Express Scripts to provide FHP’s pharmacy data management services, including claims processing and billing. FHP now contracts the work out at about 45 cents per prescription and will now pay about 26 cents, Goldstein said.
In addition, Express Scripts will provide computerized information to FHP pharmacies that monitors a patient’s prescription use to prevent duplication or a harmful mixture of a drug, Goldstein said.
“With all the pressures upon us, the agreement will help us hold the line on costs,” Goldstein said.
Express Scripts, the sixth-largest mail-order pharmaceutical company in the nation, has been looking to expand its business to the West. It also manages a network of 27,000 pharmacies and serves more than 1.6 million members in the United States, primarily in the Midwest. The agreement will expand Express Scripts’ membership about 40%.
Shares of FHP’s parent, FHP International Corp., fell 88 cents to $20 in trading Tuesday on the NASDAQ exchange. The stock price of Express Scripts rose 75 cents to $17.25 in NASDAQ trading.
