Business
Aetna expands e-prescribing
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted Oct. 2, 2006
Aetna announced Sept. 11 that it will expand an electronic prescribing initiative to physicians in three new markets on the East Coast.
Under the program, Aetna, which launched the program last year with 1,000 physicians in New Jersey, will subsidize the first-year cost of software and hardware for 700 high-prescribing physicians in New York, Hartford, Conn., and Portland, Maine.
To participate, doctors must use an electronic prescribing system from Dallas-based Zix Corp., which will recruit, install and provide support to physician offices under the terms of its contract with Aetna.
In other Aetna news, the company says it is returning to Colorado after five years without a presence there.
Aetna has returned to the market offering small-group health plans. Aetna is selling 13 plans, including two high-deductible plans that may include health savings accounts.
In 2000, Aetna was Colorado's second largest small-group carrier, but it pulled out of the state in 2001 because the plans were not profitable. Prior to re-entering Colorado, Aetna acquired HMS Healthcare in Denver last year. HMS contracts with doctors and hospitals to provide services at discounted rates, and sells access to its networks to health plans and self-funded employers.
Aetna said it plans to have 10,000 new members in Colorado by 2007.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/10/02/bibf1002.htm.
