CVS/Caremark renews federal contract

WOONSOCKET, R.I. CVS/Caremark last week announced its Caremark Pharmacy Services division has been awarded a three-year contract renewal to provide retail pharmacy benefit services and all clinical services for the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Government-wide Service Benefit Plan, also known as the Federal Employee Program. FEP covers approximately 4.7 million federal employees, retirees and dependents. The retail and clinical portion of the program generates approximately $4 billion of revenue annually.

Caremark has been administering FEP's retail pharmacy benefit management program since 1993. Under terms of the new agreement, Caremark will continue to provide retail pharmacy benefit management services through 2010, including network contracting and management of a comprehensive suite of highly-customized clinical programs. Caremark's previous award of the mail service program for FEP was effective Jan. 1, 2005 and continues through year end 2007.

Tom Ryan, president and ceo of CVS Caremark, stated, "We are pleased that FEP has chosen to continue its relationship with Caremark. FEP is a highly-valued client and we are committed to continuing to deliver on the high service levels and patient satisfaction scores that we have provided to FEP's federal employees, retirees and their families over the years. While we are disappointed in the decision to outsource the mail fulfillment to a third party beginning in 2008, we are happy to continue as the pharmacy benefit manager providing coordination of all clinical aspects of the program."