Zynchros

In this Issue

• Musings, by Bob Pinkerton
• Member Formulary Hosting Webcast, June 5th
  
• Special Pricing Promotions - Part D, Commercial & Hosting!
• Simplifying Printed Formularies—For You and Your Members,
  by David Smith
• Accelerating e-Prescribing Initiatives Webcast, June 10th
• Tips and Tricks: New Key Fields, by Scott Pillsbury
• Zynchros Online Resources

Musings

by Bob Pinkerton, COO

How Many Healthcare Experts Does It Take to Build a New H.I.T. Infrastructure?
Over the course of our existence, Zynchros has benefited greatly from the assistance of our customers in helping us to transform our vision into real products and services that solve real business problems. Without your collective input and insights we would not be where we are today and, for that, we are extremely grateful.

As we look forward to the next series of issues facing your organizations we want to build an inner circle of advisors to help us define desirable functionality for our upcoming releases. We refer to these advisory groups as Zynchros Special Interest Groups (ZSIGS). In the next week you will receive an invitation to participate in the ZSIGs and I hope you will seriously consider participating. The first groups that are forming are:

• Adjudication ZSIG – to build technology bridges between formularies in Zynchros.com and the adjudication systems in use
• Specialty Pharmacy ZSIG – to explore the use of member- and provider-facing technologies and other core functionality to simplify the management of specialty pharmacy programs
• Member and Provider Marketing and Outreach ZSIG – to explore communications opportunities, tools and techniques to improve member service, enhance provider relations and support core marketing programs in member acquisition and retention.

While the time commitment is minimal (attendance at one online meeting per quarter), the impact upon our product and your environment should prove to be significant. We are planning ZSIG review sessions in person at AMCP 2009 and NCPDP 2009. I hope you’ll consider participating and helping to shape the healthcare management technologies of tomorrow.

Please feel free to call and discuss our ZSIGs at 866-ZYNCHROS (866-966-2476) extension 7006.

Bob

Member Formulary Hosting Webcast—Enhance Your Members’ Online Experience with Member Formulary Hosting

Register Now

The web is a vital tool for communicating with your members.  Please join Zynchros for a demonstration of how we can simplify the creation, presentation and maintenance of pharmacy benefits and fulfillment options for your member website.

Register Now

Special Pricing Promotions – Part D, Commercial & Hosting Options Available!

If you have been waiting to sign up for Part D Pro, now is the time to act.  New customers can take advantage of free add-on services when you get started by May 30th, 2008.

Free services include:

• 7-months hosting for one formulary
• All CMS Supplemental File production for one formulary
  • Gap Coverage File
  • First-Free-Fill File
  • Home Infusion File
  • Excluded Drug File
  • OTC Drug File

Plus 15% off your renewal on December 31, 2008

An overall savings of at least $11,950.00

For our existing Part D customers looking to add Commercial Plan Pro, order your second module before June 15th, 2008, and receive a free 12-month hosting subscription for one formulary (a savings of $10,000.00).

Interested in Member Formulary Hosting? Buy one formulary 12-month hosting subscription and get your second formulary for free (a savings of $10,000.00).  Offer expires June 15th, 2008.

To take advantage of these promotions, please contact us, today.  You can reach us by phone at 866-996-2476, option 1 or you can fill out our online form.

Simplifying Printed Formularies—For You and Your Members

by David Smith, VP Project Management

A formulary seems like such a simple thing – it’s just a list of drugs, right?  But when it comes to creating a printed version for members (as CMS requires for the Part D program), the devil’s in the details.  On the one hand, the printed formulary should be as short and simple as possible, both to ensure clarity for the member and to keep your printing costs low.  But on the other hand, the formulary needs to avoid ambiguity that might cause problems for members (and complaints to member services).  It may seem obvious to simply list Fluconazole on the formulary at tier 2, but the member may get a nasty surprise to find the injectable version is on the specialty tier instead.  Throw in the formatting requirements from CMS and your marketing department, and the formulary isn’t so simple any more.

In the latest version of Zynchros.com we’ve created a brand new implementation of the Member Formulary (Word) export for Part D 2009 to automate the listing and formatting of your formulary’s details while giving you more control over how your formulary document is generated.  One of the biggest changes is in how we describe drugs on the formulary. Rather than simply listing every drug and every dosage form, we save space by only listing a drug name once if all the dosage forms have the same tier and UM edits.  If some formulations are on formulary at a different tier, or have a limitation such as quantity that the other forms don’t, they’ll be listed separately with the appropriate dosage form and/or strength.  We also now include the route of administration if needed to distinguish dosage forms, and clearly list injectable products.  So most formularies will list each drug only once, but additional entries for specific formulations will automatically be created as necessary, dictated by the details of your formulary.

The other major change is in how we describe the utilization management restrictions for each drug. Simple two-letter codes are displayed for the basic UM restrictions:

• QL (quantity limit)
• ST (step therapy)
• PA (prior authorization)

Also, as required by CMS, similar codes are used to identify:

• Free-First-Fill products
• Limited-access products
• Gap coverage products
• Covered non-Part D products
• Home infusion products

You can now also provide your own member message for each drug, by using the “Member Comment” field in Zynchros.com.

We trust these changes to the Part D 2009 member formulary export represent a significant improvement for your members and a reduction in manual editing for you.  As always, if you have any more suggestions for how we can improve Zynchros.com, please let me know at david.smith@zynchros.com.

David
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David M Smith
VP Product Management
david.smith@zynchros.com
Tel: (206) 792 4108

Accelerate Your e-Prescribing Initiative with Zynchros and RxHub Joint Webcast

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Health plans and pharmacy benefit managers need to answer one important question to ensure the initial success and continuing growth of their e-Prescribing programs – How do we cost effectively deliver and update formulary information to prescribers, pharmacies and members?  Please join us for a discussion of how your organization can accelerate your e-Prescribing initiative while ensuring complete and accurate formulary data delivery throughout your electronic prescribing network.

Register Now

Tips and Tricks: New Key Fields

By Scott Pillsbury, Director, Customer Service and IT

With the latest update to Zynchros.com (version 2008.05.00) you are now able to view and sort by a few more key fields from the ‘Formulary List’ page. The new fields you’ll notice are:

• Route of Administration: available on all formularies
• PA Group Description: Part D formularies only
• Drug Type: Part D formularies only
• Specialty Pharmacy: Part D formularies only
• HPMS Therapeutic Category: 2009 Part D formularies only
• HPMS Therapeutic Class: 2009 Part D formularies only

By adding these fields, Zynchros provides more flexibility in viewing, sorting, and reviewing your formulary data.

The Route of Administration data field is drawn directly from our drug database. A two letter acronym representing the route of administration is displayed in the column. For your reference, I’ve included a list of those acronyms and their descriptions.

* These Codes are used for drug products limited to this particular route. If more than one route of injection is applicable or if the route of injection is not specified, “IJ” is used.

PA Group Description, Drug Type, and Specialty Pharmacy data are taken directly from the Product Details you have entered for the applicable NDC. If the column is blank, it is because you have not supplied any data for this particular field. *Note: Be careful not to confuse this with the parameters you have set in the “formulary properties” page.

HPMS Therapeutic Category and HPMS Therapeutic Class are also taken directly from the Product Details of the applicable NDC. If you notice that these fields are ‘blank’, it’s because there are multiple valid USP classifications available. In these instances you must edit the product details and ‘manually’ select the classification you would like associated with this NDC. This is the same check that occurs when the ‘Formulary Content Validation’ is run. To easily identify and update NDC’s that are missing their Category/Class just click on the HPMS Category or HPMS Classification column heading. This will sort the columns for you. By sorting the columns in an ascending order the ‘blank’ items will be listed first making editing much easier.

Please feel free to contact me with comments, questions and suggestions for future Tips & Tricks at service@zynchros.com or 866-996-2476 option 2.

Did You Miss a Webcast? Want to Share Information with a Colleague?

You know us – online, on-demand, 24/7 – well, that means you can get the information you need when you want it.  Visit our website Resources page and download a webcast, whitepaper or data sheet.  You can also read past issues of Zyntrigues, inspect sample reports and request a demonstration.