Midwestern Higher Education Compact: Partners with WisconsinRx for prescription benefits

For more information, please contact:

Melissa Duffy, 608-334-0624

melissa.duffy@me.com

Cooperative Helps Public Plans, Private Employers and Labor Organizations Tackle Pharmacy Costs

WisconsinRx/National CooperativeRx has won a competitive bid for the opportunity to help colleges, universities and other members of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact (MHEC) with their pharmacy benefit costs.

MHEC serves education and government entities in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. National CooperativeRx is an innovative cooperative of 450 employers and organizations across the nation that have joined together to purchase higher value prescription benefits for employees.

Lana Oleen, MHEC Interim President, said the cooperative’s unique business model got her organization’s attention as they were reviewing proposals. “After careful evaluation of our options, National CooperativeRx received our highest recommendation for pharmacy benefits,” Oleen said. “Their founding mission is parallel to our own, which is to reduce operational costs by working together, plus their values are in line with ours because they are a member-owned, not-for-profit coalition.”

Oleen said that MHEC issued a Request for Proposal to launch a Pharmacy Benefit Coalition Program after identifying prescription benefits as an area where member colleges and universities could achieve cost savings through cooperative purchasing. National CooperativeRx, a successful pharmacy collaborative in its own right, has been chosen to administer the program and provide Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) services through an aggressively negotiated contract with CVS Caremark.

“We offer MHEC institutions the best of all worlds when it comes to prescription benefits,” said Greg Horstman, CEO of National CooperativeRx. “We already negotiate high value prescription benefits for hundreds of thousands of enrollees, plus we work with the nation’s largest pharmacy provider. That purchasing power instantly becomes MHEC’s purchasing power. But MHEC will also get the personalized attention that comes from member-ownership and the directive to focus on service and value,” he added.

Horstman expects his organization’s consultative expertise to benefit colleges and universities that are looking for proven methods of controlling prescription drug costs. National CooperativeRx brings a suite of clinical programs that have been evaluated by the coalition and proven to “bend the trend” on pharmacy costs. The partnership will provide many of these programs at no cost to MHEC institutions that participate in the program.

About MHEC and National CooperativeRx

MHEC is a statutorily created higher education compact that was created in 1991 in order to maximize higher education opportunity and performance through collaboration and resource sharing. There are approximately 1,000 public and private higher education institutions in the twelve member states of MHEC. The Pharmacy Benefit Coalition Program is intended to bring cost savings and higher value benefits to its members that together insure 717,000 employees and dependents.

National CooperativeRx, a division of WisconsinRx, was created when employers and labor organizations came together to control their overall drug spend, make better decisions with better data and gain access to transparent information about their pharmacy management. Today, the not for profit cooperative counts 450 public plans, private employers and labor coalitions as members.