With long-term growth goals in mind, Change Healthcare, a leading healthcare technology company, has recently acquired both PDX and eRx Network.
Focused on improving patient outcomes, PDX offers a large range of pharmacy software solutions. Their services include data analytics, revenue cycle management, prescription processing, and access to healthcare records for caregivers and patients. PDX provides their services to over 400 independent pharmacies and chains, totaling 10,000 individual pharmacies that use their technology. eRx Network provides pharmacy benefits and management related to claims, insurance verification, and e-prescribing, among other services. Their performance records are notable as well: they connect about 59,000 pharmacies, process over 1.5 billion claim transactions in a given year, and manage 520 million e-prescribing transactions a month.
Also included in this acquisition were Freedom Data Systems, which focuses on retail pharmacy automation, as well as the National Health Information Network (NHIN). The NHIN is part of the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), located within the Department of Health and Human Services. NHIH seeks to ensure the secure exchange of health information, in line with the ONC’s vision of providing high-quality care, lowering costs, and maintaining a healthy population.
Together, these companies will aid Change Healthcare in streamlining their operations, improving operational efficiency, and increasing overall cost-effectiveness. After going public in June 2019, Change Healthcare brought in $3.3 billion in revenue for that year. However, goals around cost-efficiency may be especially salient for the company following their reported losses of $5.6 million for the current year, though the $208 million and $213 million that PDX and eRx were acquired for, respectively, may belie any financial concerns.
Furthermore, as president and CEO Neil de Crescenzo noted, these expansions will provide Change Healthcare with many new opportunities for growth and the ability to potentially enter new markets. Crezcenzo also has an eye toward improving consumer engagement for the company’s customers and better serving patients. The company has focused on addressing the particular needs of providers and payers in light of the covid-19 pandemic. They have worked toward making their data available to researchers, created a virtual front desk to allow providers to offer touchless waiting rooms, and driven more electronic payments during this time. As de Crescenzo looks towards the company’s future, he believes Change Healthcare’s goals are much in line with the exigencies of the COVID crisis.
