Mercer creates advanced Rx benefit design, Dx-Rx Pairing

New York, 23 January 2008
Mercer's new Dx-Rx Pairing(tm) is an advanced pharmacy benefit design
that encourages patients to follow pharmacy treatment plans proven most
effective for certain high-cost chronic conditions by addressing common
barriers to compliance.

Dx-Rx Pairing is unique because it addresses three major flaws in
current pharmacy design and delivery. First, the plan design minimizes
financial barriers to compliance by reducing or eliminating member cost
sharing for designated diagnosis/drug pairs. Second, proactive
communication to prescribing physicians optimizes first-time
prescribing. Third, members whose utilization patterns indicate reduced
or minimal compliance are contacted to encourage them to adhere to the
preferred therapy. These three levers address financial, clinical and
personal barriers to compliance.

Dx-Rx Pairing is unique among evidence-based designs since it targets
only those combinations of diagnoses and drug therapies that have been
medically proven to improve health status while lowering overall health
care costs. Mercer developed the program in conjunction with a number of
national experts, notably Niteesh Choudhry, MD, PhD, a leading
researcher at Harvard Medical School.

Clinical evidence shows that linking a specific diagnosis (Dx) with a
specific regimen of prescribed drugs (Rx) results in a health status
improvement that avoids or reduces other medical costs. Yet traditional
health plan designs often discourage the use of these pairings by
requiring higher co-payments, even where the pairings have a proven and
measurable impact in reducing other medical costs and improving employee
productivity and quality of life.

Dx-Rx Pairing encourages patients to use the most appropriate medication
for specific conditions by reducing drug copayments for certain
diagnosis/drug pairings and increasing educational outreach to
participants and providers. Most important, Mercer's unique approach
fully integrates the efforts of disease management and pharmacy benefit
management vendors, integration that is essential to eliminating the
barriers to patient compliance.

"Today's pharmacy benefit plans typically are designed to reduce drug
cost only. They provide little to no monitoring of compliance and miss
significant opportunities to improve health," said David Dross, national
leader of Mercer's managed pharmacy consulting group. "Dx-Rx Pairing
promotes the use of evidence-based drug therapies that improve enrollee
health and reduce total health care spending. This approach can reduce
an employer's total health care spending by an estimated 1-2 percentage
points."

Examples of Dx-Rx Pairing include the use of ACE inhibitors for
enrollees with diabetes and statins and other drugs following a heart
attack. Since this approach results in improved outcomes and proper
adherence, it is particularly effective for employers with a stable
workforce and those with poor drug compliance rates for chronic diseases
(such as asthma, heart disease, diabetes and hypertension).  

"What makes this program so innovative is that it moves beyond a cost
containment initiative to address not only the efficiency of employers'
prescription benefit spending but also the effectiveness of medications
in achieving better health outcomes for employees," Mr. Dross noted.

For more information about Mercer Dx-Rx Pairing, contact David Dross at
713 / 276-2295 or David.Dross[at]mercer.com.

About Mercer

Mercer is a leading global provider of consulting, outsourcing and
investment services. Mercer works with clients to solve their most
complex benefit and human capital issues, designing and helping manage
health, retirement and other benefits. It is a leader in benefit
outsourcing. Mercer's investment services include investment consulting
and multi-manager investment management. Mercer's 17,000 employees are
based in more than 40 countries. The company is a wholly owned
subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc., which lists its stock
(ticker symbol: MMC) on the New York, Chicago and London stock
exchanges. For more information, visit www.mercer.com.

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