MILTON, ON, Feb. 2 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Systems Xcellence Inc., (“SXC” or the “Company”) a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain, today announced that as of January 31, 2006, the Company is now supporting more than 1.3 million U.S. Medicare Part D pharmacy benefit program (“Part D”) members on behalf of 11 of its InformedRx and claims processing customers. The Part D 2006 enrollment period extends to May 15, 2006 and SXC’s Part D customers are predicting additional enrollment throughout the remainder of this period and beyond.
The Part D program is being administered for the U.S. federal government by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) and was put in place to offer qualified Medicare beneficiaries a funded pharmacy benefit plan.
“The Medicare prescription drug benefit represents an important opportunity to provide seniors with affordable access to prescription drugs,” said Gordon Glenn, President and Chief Executive Officer of SXC. “To date, the number of Part D members that we are processing transactions for has exceeded our expectations. The 1.3 million Part D members are expected to drive more than 30 million new transactions through our data center annually. With approximately 24 million eligible members now enrolled in the Part D program, we are supporting approximately 5.0% of the market and we look to expand our involvement in the coming months.”
2006 Processing Growth
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Along with the increasing processing levels resulting from the Part D program, SXC also expects to generate processing growth in 2006 from its ongoing U.S. state Medicaid efforts and its core commercial account activity. In 2005, the Company announced the award of two state Medicaid processing contracts one of which went live in January 2006, with the second expected to go-live by early 2007.
The Company’s core commercial account processing growth is expected to increase as a result of business implemented in the latter part of 2005 and prospective business generated during 2006 related primarily to its InformedRx pharmacy benefit administrative offering.
For 2006, the Company expects to increase overall processing levels by at least 65% to more than 230 million adjudicated and switched transactions, compared to 140 million in 2005. Approximately 33% of this growth, or 30 million transactions, is expected to result from the Part D program with the balance originating from the Company’s commercial and State Medicaid initiatives.
About Systems Xcellence Inc.
Systems Xcellence (SXC) is headquartered in Milton, Ontario with offices and processing centres in Lombard, Illinois, Warminster, Pennsylvania, Scottsdale, Arizona and Victoria, British Columbia. Through its SXC Health Solutions, Inc subsidiary, SXC is a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions and services to the U.S. healthcare benefits management industry. The company’s product offerings and solutions combine a wide range of software applications, application service provider (ASP) processing services and professional services, designed for many of the largest organizations in the pharmaceutical supply chain, such as pharmacy benefit managers, managed care organizations, independent, chain and mail-order pharmacies and other healthcare intermediaries. SXC can be found on the Internet at www.sxc.com.
This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These forward-looking statements entail various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties about the Company’s business are more fully discussed in the Company’s Annual Information Form.
Systems Xcellence
CONTACT: Dave Mason, Investor Relations, The Equicom Group Inc., (416)815-0700 ext. 237, dmason@equicomgroup.com; Irwin Studen, Chief FinancialOfficer, Systems Xcellence Inc., Tel: (905) 876-4741, investors@sxc.com