MEDIA RELEASES

TAMPA - Last year's drug- discount card for Medicare beneficiaries found few takers, despite the publicity blitz. Seniors said they found the program confusing; there were simply too many choices.

When the Medicare drug plans begin competing for enrollees in October, that kind of confusion could recur. It also could be risky for the 6.4 million low-income elderly or disabled Medicare beneficiaries nationwide who now get free prescriptions through state Medicaid programs.

If they don't choose a plan, they'll be randomly enrolled in one, and it won't necessarily cover the drugs they take or has a pharmacy nearby.

Gold Standard Inc., a Tampa company that collects and sells information on the prescription drug industry, can help avert that fiasco, said chief executive Russell Thomas. Its new subsidiary, Informed Decisions, can help these frail and vulnerable Medicaid beneficiaries with a free program to figure out which Medicare drug plans are best suited for them, based on the prescriptions and pharmacies they currently use.

Thomas sees the enrollment program as an opportunity to get a national market for the company's products and services. For him and for the president of Informed Decisions, David Medvedeff, it's also a chance to help the elderly.

"I'm passionate about closing the communications gap between older people and health care," Medvedeff said Tuesday.

Florida Medicaid officials like the idea. They signed a letter of intent in April to put the plan in place for all Medicaid beneficiaries who will be folded into the new Medicare pharmacy coverage, called Part D, on Jan. 1. Informed Decisions is trying to reach similar agreements with several other states.

Informed Decisions is in the ideal place to provide the service because its parent company already maintains confidential medication histories for Medicaid patients in Florida under contract with the state. Gold Standard is best known as the company that put personal digital devices in the hands of thousands of Florida doctors who treat a lot of Medicaid patients.

Through instant access to a patient's electronic records, the doctors avoid prescribing drugs that might cause harmful interactions and help cut Medicaid fraud.

The patients who could benefit from the Informed Decisions service are the 350,000 so-called "dual-eligibles" - people who qualify for Medicare because they're elderly or disabled, and for Medicaid because they have little income. Many of the dual-eligibles are too physically frail to handle their own affairs, and many others are mentally ill.

Florida has a state-run program of volunteers to help the elderly make health-care choices. The program, called SHINE, can't handle the upcoming crunch on its own.

In cooperation with Medicaid, Informed Decisions will send out a letter to each dual eligible in Florida containing an individualized scorecard that rates plans on how well they fit that patient's needs.

"This is an education campaign," said Medvedeff, who came to Gold Standard from the Medicaid program and, before that, the Eckerd Corp.

An intriguing aspect of the program, called Beneficiary Centered Enrollment, is that it's free to both the state and the patients. Medvedeff said he is covering costs in Florida through grants from the National Association of Chain Drug Stores and pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly & Co. of Indianapolis and AstraZeneca of London.

Medvedeff declined to say how much grant money he's raised so far but said it would take $5 million to provide the service for all 6.4 million dual eligibles in the country.

In addition to Florida, Informed Decisions has a written agreement with Louisiana, he said. The company awaits approvals from Texas, Maryland, West Virginia, Mississippi, North Carolina and New York.

Reporter Carol Gentry can be reached at (813) 259-7624.