Omnicell, Inc., (Nasdaq: OMCL) a leading provider of system solutions to acute healthcare facilities, today announced a partnership agreement to co-market Sentry Data Systems’ Sentinel RCM™ application, which has a sophisticated 340B solution component. Sentry specializes in providing solutions to address a variety of financial challenges found within hospitals and pharmacies while Omnicell’s WorkflowRx™ software offers a complete inventory management system for hospital pharmacies.

The Sentinel RCM™ software will integrate with Omnicell’s new WorkflowRx 7.0 software to address the inventory management, financial reconciliation and compliance aspect of participating in the 340B Drug Pricing Program.

The Federal 340B Drug Pricing Program provides access to reduced price prescription drugs to health care facilities certified by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as “covered entities.” Hospitals with a Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) adjustment percentage of greater than 11.75 percent meet the adjustment percentage requirement to participate in the 340B Program. Hospitals must also meet other qualifying criteria (http://www.hrsa.gov/opa/dsh.htm). Significant savings on pharmaceuticals may be seen by entities that participate in this program.

“As IDNs (Integrated Delivery Networks) face reductions in reimbursements, managing the cost and inventory turns of drugs in the revenue cycle will become increasingly important. The integration of Sentry’s Sentinel RCM™ software with Omnicell’s WorkflowRx will improve visibility and management of hospital drug costs which saves our clients time and money while improving their operations,” said Travis Leonardi, Sentry Data Systems’ founder and president.

“We are pleased to be partnering with Sentry to offer an easy-to-use, proven technology for our customers,” said Marga Ortigas-Wedekind, Omnicell vice president, global marketing and product development. “The partnership with Sentry will allow Omnicell to offer our pharmacy customers a 340B solution to enhance their inventory management capabilities while realizing significant medication cost savings.”

SOURCE: PR Newswire

Find more details at the conference’s web site: http://www.340bconferences.org/conferences/2010_annual/index.cfm

For more conference details, visit the official event page at: http://www.hfmaconference.org/.

To schedule an onsite meeting or request information about Sentry prior to the show, please contact us.

See you in Vegas!!

To schedule an onsite meeting or to request information about Sentry prior to the show, please contact us.

Hope to see you at the Sentry booth!

As the nation’s largest pharmacy services company, the mission of CVS Caremark is to manage pharmacy costs for our clients and their members, improve health care outcomes and provide broad access and choice for consumers. We were surprised and disappointed by Walgreens’ announced intention not to participate on a go forward basis in CVS Caremark PBM pharmacy networks. Our network of participating pharmacies is currently the largest ever maintained by Caremark Pharmacy Services, our PBM business, with more than 64,000 participants (only about 7,000 of which are Walgreens stores). Walgreens is offered comparable reimbursement rates as other large national retail chains, including CVS/pharmacy.

Despite this, Walgreens continues to take steps that make it a high cost pharmacy provider and disrupt members. Walgreens has tried this approach several times in the past, targeting employers, health insurers and government entities. Today’s announcement by Walgreens is nothing more than a transparent effort to raise its reimbursement rates at the expense of plan sponsors and members and illustrates an inability to adapt to the demands of the marketplace in today’s challenging and rapidly evolving health care environment. CVS Caremark is focused on being responsive to our clients’ needs and offering them innovative solutions that reduce costs and improve health care outcomes. The fact is our clients, not retail pharmacies, dictate plan designs. Unfortunately, Walgreens has a demonstrated pattern of publicly objecting to plan designs not to their liking, such as mail based programs and other innovative programs that are designed to reduce costs and meet client needs.

CVS Caremark remains open to discussions regarding Walgreens continued participation in our PBM pharmacy networks. In fact, we just recently met with Walgreens management regarding these issues. However, we will continue to prioritize the needs of our clients and their members, including access to convenient and affordable pharmacy care. Furthermore, we believe a public relations strategy that threatens network withdrawal is not a proper way to resolve business issues and is not in the best interests of patient care.

SOURCE CVS Caremark
http://info.cvscaremark.com/newsroom/press-releases/cvs-caremark-issues-statement-response-walgreens-unexpected-announcement

Alegent Health Case Study
Saint Barnabas Case Study