Everybody into the pool! The nation’s two big e-prescribing companies have merged to create a single network that includes most of the big prescription-drug middle men we can think of.
RxHub, a JV by the big pharmacy-benefit managers CVS, ExpressScripts and Medco, merged in a cashless transaction with SureScripts, which was operated by a group of retailers including Wal-Mart and Walgreen.
The combined entity will go by the overly long name of SureScripts-RxHub, LLC (note to execs: if you can’t decide who gets to keep the name after a merger, flip a coin). The deal isn’t subject to antitrust concerns because the combined fair value of the LLC isn’t large enough, Dow Jones Newswires reports.
Health wonks like e-prescribing: Electronic systems are better than people at catching errors, for one thing, and you can’t lose an e-prescription in the bottom of your purse. But it hasn’t really taken off.
Combining what had been the two largest networks into one may help by giving physicians a more centralized way to get information on existing prescriptions and route new electronic prescriptions to the pharmacy of a patient’s choice.
“The merger makes complete sense,” John Halamka, chief information officer of Harvard Medical School, told Dow Jones.