Argus Is New Pharmacy Benefits Provider

Argus Health Systems will replace Caremark as Humana’s pharmacy claims processor of record, beginning September 14, 2005. In its new role, Argus will support Humana’s major pharmacy initiatives, including the Medicare Part D drug benefit, and industry-leading programs, such as Maximize Your Benefit, the RxImpact benefit and the RxCalculator pricing tool.

“We chose Argus because of its best-in-class reputation and passion to leverage its technology for our commercial and Part D pharmacy benefit needs,” said William Fleming, PharmD, vice president of pharmacy and clinical integration for Humana. “Like Humana, Argus’ business philosophy embraces transparency and integrity in all transactions, which is core to our consumer strategy.”

By offering administrative tools that complement Humana’s consumer choice products, Argus is ideally suited to work with Humana in the critical business of pharmacy benefits management. Argus’ strengths in processing and reporting align with Humana’s strengths in contracting (with drug manufacturers and retail pharmacies) and benefit design. “A favorable administrative structure will allow us to deliver more competitive pricing,” said Fleming.

The move to Argus is occurring for administrative reasons and will not change the pharmacy benefits or covered drugs of Humana plan members. The retail pharmacies will be most affected because they will need to submit prescription claims to Argus for processing. “We expect the move to Argus to have no impact on physicians,” said Fleming.

“At Humana, we are fully committed to innovative, affordable, consumer-driven pharmacy benefits,” said Fleming. “We look forward to working with Argus to continue that evolution.”