Spartan joins in effort to provide employer-pharmacy based health benefits plan

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare and Glen’s Pharmacies, all Spartan Stores banners, along with Gentex Corporation, a company that develops, manufactures and markets interior and exterior automatic-dimming automotive rearview mirrors, last week introduced Michigan’s first employer-pharmacy health benefits plan, a plan designed to help incentivize healthy lifestyles as a way to help reduce the total healthcare spend.

The plan is designed to provide both education and personal health management for Gentex employees with special emphasis on chronic health problems, such as diabetes, asthma, hypertension and high cholesterol, utilizing a collaborative approach between the patient, the pharmacist care manager and the employee’s personal physician.

Pharmacists from D&W Fresh Market, Family Fare and Glen’s Pharmacies will provide medication therapy management services for Gentex employees on a fee-for-service basis in addition to being named the preferred pharmacies for the Gentex Health Plan.

As the MTM services develop, the two companies plan to utilize the benefits that the supermarkets offer for a total health and nutrition solution that the drugstore formats can’t provide, Spartan Stores said.

“This alliance is an important new step in our company’s health and wellness initiatives,” stated Alan Hartline, executive vice president merchandising for Spartan Stores.

“We are very excited that two local companies have worked together to provide a cost-effective healthcare solution for our employees,” said Gentex vice president of human resources Bruce Los. “Gentex puts significant emphasis on preventative healthcare and has a very active wellness program in place, with high participation by employees across all levels at our company. This new program with Spartan Stores, that provides our employees one-on-one access to pharmacists and reduced or eliminated co-pays on prescriptions, is a significant benefit to Gentex employees and the company itself,” Los said. “We know that healthy employees are more productive employees, and we’re happy that we’re able to provide this new benefit.”

The Employer-Pharmacy Health Benefit Plan is based on a similar program begun in Asheville, N.C., called the Asheville Project.

Employees at Gentex will begin utilizing the new program in January.