« What's really happening with consumer-directed health care | Main | AWP suits - what, if any impact? »

Third party billers on the block

Third party billers WorkingRx and Third Party Solutions may be for sale. The two pharmacy factoring companies together own the work comp script factoring business, a sector that has been under some pressure lately. According to several industry sources, the owners of both entities (Fiserv for TPS and investment firm Arcapita for WorkingRx) have engaged investment bankers to shop their respective companies.

WorkingRx has been struggling of late; consolidation amongst the pharmacy chains has cost the company some of its business. That coupled with its combative approach to dealing with workers comp payers, and recent legal defeats may have lessened it's long term prospects.

TPS is part of Fiserv's work comp pharmacy entity, that also includes DirectCompRx and transaction processor P2P. The word is Fiserv is shopping both TPS and DirectCompRx. TPS revenues are rumored to be near a half-billion dollars, but margins are thin.

What does this mean for you?

Potentially consolidation in the TPB industry, or if they are acquired by PBMs, a possible new approach to first fill.

Posted by on December 12, 2006 11:15 AM |

Comments

I am a Workers Compensation Professional. thanks.

Posted by: Jack Countway | December 15, 2006 11:28 AM

Any information / links you could provide to the recent legal defeats that are referenced in the article?

Posted by: Hi | December 18, 2006 5:10 PM

If you're in technology and you're still working on the same
technology you were working on 18 to 24 months ago, and you haven't
been exposed to something new, it might be time for a change.

Posted by: waseem | December 20, 2006 1:02 AM

Post a comment

Due to the growing number of spam comments, I have to ask you to do one more thing to get your comment posted. Just type in the text you see in the box below into the textbox to the right. That will prove you are a real human and not a computer system that is posting spam. Please be careful to enter in the right code; if you make a mistake the system may temporarily block you. If the authentication system is blocking you, try again in an hour. If you continue to be blocked, send your comment to jpaduda AT healthstrategyassoc DOT com and note that you would like your comment posted. Thanks.