CVS, two pharmacy plans merge e-Rx systems<Br> with the four-store SureScripts network

WOONSOCKET – CVS Caremark Corp., Medco Health Systems and Express Scripts – the nation’s three largest managers of pharmacy plans – announced this month they will merge their electronic prescription network with one operated by a group of drugstore chains that includes Wal-Mart.
Bloomberg News reported that the merged network expects to transmit 100-million drug orders this year via computer, accelerating the nation’s move toward paperless prescribing, said Rick Ratliff, acting chief executive officer of SureScripts, one of the two services. Benefits managers will get the chance to offer more patients lower-cost generic or mail-order drugs, while pharmacies save the cost and time of deciphering poorly written prescriptions, he said.
The combination may triple the number of digital prescriptions written in the United States, Ratliff said in a telephone interview. The deal closed this month, though it isn’t known when the two networks will begin working as one. Drugstore chains Rite Aid Corp., Walgreen Co. and Duane Reade Inc. are also involved.
The “cashless merger” will create the nation’s largest network for electronically transmitting prescriptions and other patient information, including medical histories and drug coverage, the networks said in a joint statement. The new entity, temporarily dubbed SureScripts-RxHub, will have access to records for 200 million patients through the benefit managers and 70 percent of U.S. drugstores, the networks said. •