FRANKLIN LAKES, N.J., Sept. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- For online consumers, nothing may be more important than knowing that businesses respect their privacy. According to an independent study of more than 400 North American companies, pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) Medco Health Solutions, Inc. has the industry-leading record with regard to consumer privacy on the Web among healthcare companies, including other PBMs.
Medco's award-winning Web site, http://www.medco.com, received the highest customer privacy ranking among all pharmaceutical and healthcare companies in the Customer Respect Group's (CRG) 2005 Privacy Report. Medco ranked 7th overall in the group's annual evaluation of the privacy policies and practices of hundreds of major companies, outperforming all but 2 percent of Web sites analyzed. Medco shares the top 10 ranking with some of the world's leading companies including Intel and International Business Machines (IBM).
"Consideration for the online privacy of our clients' members and employees is a top priority for us - it's a trust that we vigorously and passionately pursue," said Tom Feitel, senior vice president and chief web officer, Medco. "When you conduct business online, you should expect to clearly understand what the companies you interact with do with the personal information you provide, especially when it may be personal health information."
The CRG is an international research and consulting firm that evaluates how companies treat their online customers. The 2005 Privacy Report reflects the current state of online privacy, including use of supplied personal data, transparency of policies and "opt-in" vs. "opt-out" policies.
"Privacy concerns are one of the major obstacles for the next level of adoption of the Internet by the online customer," said Terry Golesworthy, president of The Customer Respect Group. "We believe this report will help companies make changes before privacy concerns affect their corporate reputations and brands."
Medco.com - Earning Customer Respect One Member at a Time ...
The CRG 2005 Privacy Report is published in addition to its annual study of Fortune 100 companies, where the CRG conducts an independent, in-depth analysis of consumers' online experience, focusing on six criteria: simplicity (ease of navigation), responsiveness (quick, helpful responses to inquiries), privacy (respect for the privacy of the customer), attitude (customer focus of the site), transparency (open and honest policies) and principles (values and respect customer data).
The recently released "Best of Breed 2004" report, which highlights the best performers from more than 2000 Web sites of the world's largest companies across the CRG's six criteria, rated medco.com favorably in three areas: No. 1 in the attitude category, No. 2 in the simplicity category and No. 15 among the 'Excellence in Customer Respect' category.
In addition, in the CRG's 2005 Fortune 100 Study, medco.com earned a near- perfect score for transparency (9.8 out of 10), ranked second among Fortune 100 companies for online customer respect, and was the only site in the healthcare industry to make the top ten.
Earlier this year, the CRG released findings from its First Quarter 2005 Online Customer Respect Study of the country's largest pharmaceutical and healthcare firms, and ranked medco.com "best overall" among all companies in the study.
About Medco
Medco Health Solutions, Inc. is a leader in managing prescription drug benefit programs that are designed to drive down the cost of pharmacy healthcare for private and public employers, health plans, labor unions and government agencies of all sizes. With its technologically advanced mail-order pharmacies and its award-winning Internet pharmacy, Medco has been recognized for setting new industry benchmarks for pharmacy dispensing quality. Medco serves the needs of patients with complex conditions requiring sophisticated treatment through its specialty pharmacy operation, which became the nation's largest with the 2005 acquisition of Accredo Health. Medco, the highest-ranked prescription drug benefit manager on Fortune magazine's list of "America's Most Admired Companies," is a Fortune 50 company with 2004 revenues of $35 billion. On the Net: http://www.medco.com.
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements involve risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the statements. No forward-looking statement can be guaranteed, and actual results may differ materially from those projected. We undertake no obligation to publicly update any forward- looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise. Forward-looking statements in this presentation should be evaluated together with the risks and uncertainties that affect our business, particularly those mentioned in the Risk Factors section of the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Medco Health Solutions, Inc.CONTACT: Jennifer Leone of Medco Health Solutions, Inc., +1-201-269-6402,jennifer_leone@medco.com; or Kevin Lamb or Lauren Schroeder of Coyne PublicRelations, +1-973-316-1665, for Medco
Web site: http://www.medco.com/
