Cincinnati-based Kroger Health, the healthcare division of The Kroger Co., and Prime Therapeutics have announced an agreement for the Kroger Family of Pharmacies to remain in-network, effective Jan. 1.
“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.
“We look forward to working collaboratively to improve the health outcomes of our collective customers by increasing health access, delivering pricing transparency and ensuring affordable prices.”
This agreement will provide millions of patients with affordable healthcare services.
“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’ quality metrics,” said Dave Schlett, EVP, president of PBM solutions, 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.”
While the Kroger Family of Pharmacies will not be in the ESI network for 2023, it continues to participate in many other pharmacy benefit networks, for example the Prime network. In addition, people may continue to fill prescriptions at Kroger Family of Pharmacies through other options.
The agreement with Prime will prevent disruption to Prime’s Medicare Part D members mitigating the end of year Kroger termination with Express Scripts while continuing health access, delivering pricing transparency and helping to ensure affordable prices.
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.
The company has more than 2,200 pharmacies and 220 clinics in 35 states serving more than 17 million customers annually. It has a team of 24,000 healthcare practitioners from pharmacists and nurse practitioners to dietitians and technicians. Additional network information can be found here.
