Kroger Health Makes Deal to Remain In-Network With Prime Therapeutics
In a move that will ensure pharmacy access for more than 33 million Americans, Kroger Health has made a direct agreement for the grocer’s family of pharmacies to remain in-network with diversified pharmacy benefit manager Prime Therapeutics, LLC, effective Jan. 1.
Prime Therapeutics is collectively owned by Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans, and Kroger says the deal will increase health access, deliver pricing transparency and ensure affordable prices for commercial, Medicare and Medicaid customers.
"Kroger is always looking for new opportunities and collaborations to make Medicare more accessible, and our direct agreement with Prime delivers benefits for our customers and for the thousands of communities we operate in daily," said Colleen Lindholz, president of Kroger Health.
The agreement will prevent disruption to Prime's Medicare Part D members mitigating the end-of-year Kroger termination with Express Scripts. The Kroger Family of Pharmacies remains in-network for Prime's Medicare Part D Plan clients and nearly all national and regional Medicare Part D plans.
"It was critical for Prime to maintain the Kroger Family of Pharmacies as an option for our members in our network of high-quality pharmacy providers given their strong record of meeting and exceeding Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services' (CMS) quality metrics," said Dave Schlett with Eagan, Minn.-based Prime Therapeutics. "Prime and Kroger share a common focus on member-centered care and providing our members continued access to the Kroger Family of Pharmacies."
Kroger Health, the health care division of The Kroger Co., has more than 2,200 pharmacies and 220 clinics in 35 states serving more than 14 million customers, and a team of 22,000 health care practitioners. Serving 60 million households annually nationwide through a digital shopping experience, and almost 2,800 retail food stores under a variety of banner names, Cincinnati-based Kroger is No. 4 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
