KUALA LUMPUR (April 13): Prescription pharmacy chain Alpro Pharmacy in collaboration with managed care services provider MiCare Group have accumulated RM8 million in savings on medication costs from their Corporate Disease Management Program (CDMP) across Malaysia in a span of two years.

MiCare Group is a third party administrator and a joint venture of Zuellig Pharma Group, IFC (member of World Bank) and Mitsui & Co.

The group builds the connectivity applications and infrastructure for the exchange of transaction information, linking up key players in the healthcare sector such as doctors, patients, government organisations, corporates and insurers to bring about a seamless and efficient management of healthcare services.

In a joint statement on Thursday (April 13), the firms said one of the programmes under the CDMP provided by Alpro to MiCare’s corporate members is the Corporate Panel Pharmacy Service, which provides an additional layer of intervention or cross-checking by a pharmacist to review the prescriptions from the clinic before dispensing them to the corporate user.

MiCare’s group chief executive officer Moses Hee said taking a holistic perspective, the collaboration does not stop at providing medication.

“We also actively implement different Corporate Disease Management Programs to help corporations improve health outcomes. Our panel GP clinics are also important partners in achieving our stated vision and with their support we have witnessed optimisation of healthcare services,” he said.

Hee said one of the programmes under the CDMP provided by Alpro to MiCare’s corporate members is the Corporate Panel Pharmacy Service, which provides an additional layer of intervention or cross-checking by a pharmacist to review the prescriptions from the clinic before dispensing them to the corporate user.

Alpro Pharmacy CEO Low Swee Siong said it is the duty of pharmacists to ensure medication safety.

“With the involvement of a pharmacist, coupled with innovation and technology, including telemedicine and PILcube for personalised medication packaging, we managed to generate substantial cost-savings for our users,” said Low.

Low said Alpro is aligned with MiCare’s stand on not practising any “fee split” with medical providers.

“In our strategic partnership with MiCare, there are no unnecessary transactional charges imposed on medical providers.

“This has resulted in tremendous cost savings to MiCare’s corporate customers, and has definitely made our collaboration with MiCare more meaningful,” he said.

Low said that in the past two years, Alpro has also provided its complimentary Corporate Wellness Programme, another initiative of the Corporate Disease Management Program, to more than 15,000 of MiCare’s corporate members through preliminary health screening, virtual health talks and webinars to more than 100,000 employees to reduce productivity losses in the workforce due to health factors.