DataDirect ClientBuilder Helps Caremark Rx Streamline the Call Center

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Caremark Rx is a leading pharmaceutical services company, providing comprehensive drug benefit services to over 2,000 health plan sponsors and their participants throughout the United States. Caremark's clients include corporate health plans, managed care organizations, insurance companies, unions, government agencies and other funded benefit plans.

Caremark manages an extensive data communication network linked to approximately 55,000 retail pharmacies and 2,000 clients. Call centers are one way the company efficiently and economically helps patients, health plans and pharmacies process prescription insurance claims and communicate important prescription benefit information.

Challenge: Critical Data Dispersed on Four Different Systems

Since the company maintains its data on four different computer systems, finding the critical information necessary to answer a patient or pharmacist query was often difficult and time consuming. Furthermore, the Caremark call center is up and running 18 hours on weekdays and 9 hours on Saturdays and Sundays, so they needed a solution that could be implemented quickly and would not disturb crucial call center operations.

In order to make the call center run more efficiently and get the most out of its legacy mainframe applications, Caremark realized it needed to standardize its existing desktops in a way that would be easy to use and provide consistent information across the board. Caremark knew that replacing its existing host-based applications would be costly, time consuming and risky.

Solution: Combine Data onto One Platform Using DataDirect ClientBuilder to Interface with Legacy Applications

The solution was to combine data on one platform, allowing call center representatives to respond to patients, pharmacists and Caremark's health plan clients much faster and more accurately. After evaluating a number of different solutions, Caremark chose DataDirect for its expertise in legacy extension solutions to create screens and interfaces that would standardize data on one uniform desktop.

Caremark leveraged DataDirect ClientBuilder to develop a full browser-based Graphical User Interface (GUI) and desktop functionality for existing host-based legacy applications so the provider could streamline its four data sources onto one user interface.

DataDirect combined all of the work process of a call center representative servicing a customer and consolidated the information on one easy-to-use GUI window. Now, whether Caremark personnel are looking up prescription information or the eligibility of a cardholder, the call center representatives easily find the data they need and know that the information is the most accurate and current.

"DataDirect has made life easier for all of our call center representatives," states Ed D'Anna, Director of the ITD Call Center for Caremark. "And now, training is easier than ever because we can train technicians on one standardized platform as opposed to the multiple systems we had before. When patients, clients or pharmacists have questions about prescriptions, we can answer those questions in a timely manner with the most current data available. That's essential for success in the healthcare industry today."