Insurer to Pay for Rx Histories

HDM Breaking News, July 8, 2008

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey will commit up to $500,000 to help select hospitals in its network adopt electronic medication history technology.

The program is designed to give physicians real-time medication histories when patients check into a hospital or emergency department.

Under the program, Horizon will pay for 85% of the costs of the technology up to $40,000 for each hospital. Chilton Memorial Hospital, a 256-bed facility in Pompton Plains, is an early adopter. Horizon expects up to eight hospitals will join the program by year-end.

The hospitals will use the RcopiaAC MedHx software of DrFirst Inc., Rockville, Md. The software queries the databases of recently merged SureScripts-RxHub for fill history from SureScripts’ national electronic prescription network and medication history from RxHub’s network of pharmacy benefit management firms. The software also queries the databases of DrFirst, a vendor of e-prescribing software.

More information is available at drfirst.com and horizonblue.com.

For more information on related topics, visit the following channels:

• Medication Management
• Hospitals
• Payers