May 19 2015
MedVantx, Inc., a leading provider of point-of-care medication access, adherence and direct-to-patient consumer engagement programs, today announced the Company's MedStart Formulary Connect™ program. This innovative program equips leading health systems and ACOs with new formulary management tools that are designed to build greater alignment and advance the traditional medication formulary program upstream in the value chain to the point of care. This new program creates new areas of collaboration between providers and pharmaceutical companies to optimize the medication cost, access and convenience equation.
Formulary compliance is often addressed with the prescriber retrospectively and has not kept pace with the rapid changes within value based reimbursement programs currently underway in the marketplace. Historically, physicians and health systems have been largely agnostic with respect to medication formulary design and management due to the lack of any financial risk for the prescription drug benefit. Given the advent of the Affordable Care Act, Accountable Care and other value-based reimbursement models, health systems are assuming more direct responsibility for the patients' total cost of care, including pharmacy costs. A recent survey conducted by Managed Care Executives, indicates that over the next three years, approximately 72% of ACOs expect to create their own customized formularies. Given the shifting reimbursement landscape, health systems are exploring new shared-risk contracting models as well as technology based solutions to implement their own distinct medication formularies and medication access models.
MedVantx pioneered the pharmaceutical industry's first anticipatory delivery channel of free initial generic medication therapy in U.S. physician offices through the Company's proprietary "ATM-like" medication management and sampling system, MedStart-Connect™. Through an integrated network of 4,000 physicians, MedVantx eliminated a key structural gap in primary medication adherence—the fact that 40-50% of initial prescriptions are never filled at the pharmacy. By starting patients on medication therapy at the point of care, MedVantx has demonstrated that patients are more adherent to their medication regimens over time leading to a reduction in overall healthcare costs. The MedStart Connect program also enhances patient satisfaction levels and has fundamentally changed the healthcare consumers' medication access experience.
Through the MedStart Formulary Connect™ program, health systems and pharmaceutical companies can collaborate to create new contracting models and develop point of care based medication formularies and medication access programs. Working with health systems and pharmaceutical manufacturers, MedVantx creates access to free initial full course samples of formulary aligned medications for consumers. According to recent industry surveys, the average cost of a branded medication in 2013 was $161 dollars. By providing an aligned formulary, the health system benefits by getting patients started on preferred medications, both the health system and the patient benefit by getting the first fill provided at no cost and the pharmaceutical manufacturer benefits by ensuring that its key formulary-aligned products are available at the point of care. Through MedStart Formulary Connect™, key stakeholders benefit leading to a reduction in overall medication related costs of up to 25%.
"As providers assume more financial responsibility for the total cost of patient care, they are seeking new business models and technology based solutions with respect to the traditional medication formulary and medication sampling models", said Trond Waerness, Vice President, Business Development at MedVantx, Inc. "We currently work with many leading pharmaceutical manufacturers to provide consumers access to over $1B dollars of free therapy on an annual basis. We are excited to work with our pharmaceutical company partners and health system customers to create integrated products and services that eliminate gaps in adherence and reduce the total cost of care".
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