Minnesota Implements Additional E-Health Initiatives

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced today that the state of Minnesota will implement e-prescribing for state employees and their dependents through a new prescription benefits manager.

The Department of Employee Relations (DOER) has agreed to negotiate with Navitus Health Solutions of Madison, Wisconsin as the sole pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) for the Minnesota Advantage Health Plan for State employees. Currently, each of the three health plans that participate in Advantage uses a separate PBM to administer pharmacy benefits for 115,000 state employees and their dependents.

A single PBM will increase efficiency and save the state about $5 million a year. The savings will go directly back to the health plan to help control rising health care premiums.
"Government can and should do more to contain health care costs through technology and the purchasing power of our award-winning Advantage health plan," Pawlenty said. "A single pharmacy benefit manager will improve quality and, at the same time, lower health plan costs paid by employees and taxpayers."

"The Minnesota Advantage Health Plan will be able to expand health and pharmacy programs while saving millions," DOER commissioner Patricia Anderson said. "Some of the benefits include a single drug formulary, enhanced implementation of clinical programs and plan design improvements, and streamlining of the prescription refill and authorization process."

One of the first initiatives under the new PBM is to implement ePrescribing, which allows prescriptions to be entered and transmitted electronically to participating pharmacies. E-prescribing improves patient safety and overall quality of care by reducing errors associated with illegible handwriting, improper dosages, and drug interaction mistakes.

E-prescribing will allow state employees to better manage prescription drug medications while making prescription drug information available to members and their doctors 24/7 in a more portable and sharable format.

The increased quality and savings realized through a single prescription benefits manager builds on the successes from the 2007 legislative session:

• Governor Pawlenty proposed and the Legislature adopted an effort to create a uniform electronic billing and coding system that will make Minnesota the first state in the nation to use a single electronic method for all claims and eligibility transactions, significantly reducing health care administrative costs. Paper claims and eligibility transactions can no longer be submitted in Minnesota after January 15, 2009.

• The governor proposed a continued investment in E-Health initiatives to move Minnesota toward an interoperable electronic medical record system, ensuring that the health care industry is better able to provide care that is safer, more coordinated, more efficient, and less expensive. Minnesota will require that all hospitals and health care providers implement interoperable electronic health records by January 1, 2015. The Governor signed a bill to provide $14 million to help small rural health care providers and community clinics meet that goal.

• The Governor proposed and the Legislature agreed to update Minnesota privacy statutes to protect the privacy of citizens in the new age of electronic records.