Interesting article - Matria on the Internet
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WebMD Announces Strategic Partnership With Physician Sales & Service, Inc., Nation's Leading Distributor of Medical Products
ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 4, 1998--
Partnership Increases Sales Team Marketing WebMD
to 1300, Providing Company With Unique and
Powerful Competitive Advantage
WebMD, Inc., the Internet's leading healthcare network offering a comprehensive suite of content and applications for physicians and consumers, today announced a partnership with Physician Sales & Service, Inc. (PSS), a division of PSS World Medical, Inc. (NASDAQ: PSSI), the nation's leading alternate site distributor of medical supplies.
Under the agreement, more than 700 sales representatives from PSS will distribute WebMD services to the PSS customer base of more than half the nation's 200,000-plus doctor's offices. WebMD will offer PSS products through its Internet-based service for physicians.
The partnership with PSS will bring to nearly 1300 the number of sales personnel from WebMD partners promoting the service to physicians and hospitals. In addition to the more than 700 from PSS, 400 sales people from HBO & Company, 100 from Envoy Corporation and 77 from Matria Healthcare, Inc, will market WebMD.
Launched last month, the Atlanta-based WebMD network provides physicians with a comprehensive suite of Internet-based products, services and tools that allow them to save time, reduce costs, raise the standard of care and improve communications with patients and their networks. Physicians receive an array of world-class content and applications, from insurance verification services to the leading Internet medical library to hundreds of continuing medical education courses and now, an online supply store through PSS.
Through the alliance, PSS' sales force of more than 700 will be deployed to promote WebMD along with PSS products. Physicians who enroll with WebMD through PSS will receive the first $100 of PSS products purchased online for free. PSS carries more than 30,000 products, including the highest-quality medical supplies, equipment and pharmaceuticals.
Jeffrey Arnold, Chairman and CEO of WebMD, said, "We are tremendously pleased that we can partner with PSS to offer WebMD to physicians across the country. We enjoy a unique and powerful competitive advantage in the fact that PSS and our other 21 partners, representing powerful healthcare brands with access to nearly the entire industry, are not only providing world-class products and services but also aggressively promoting WebMD to their customer base. Through PSS, and our partnerships with other healthcare leaders like HBO & Company, Envoy and Matria, we are well on our way to delivering WebMD to all of the nation's 700,000 doctors and 6,000 hospitals."
Douglas Harper, Senior Vice President and Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at PSS, stated "We are pleased to offer WebMD to our valued customers along with a rebate incentive. Our motto is 'The Customer is Everything.' WebMD will help our customers use the latest technology to run their offices more efficiently, and that helps us serve them better."
WebMD Network
Through a choice of service packages starting at $29.95 a month, WebMD's healthcare professional network offers an unprecedented array of Internet-based services, products and information through its world class partners in the following categories:
-- Office: WebMD offers real-time insurance verification and
referral authorization; an answering service; dictation and
transcription; unified messaging and secure electronic delivery
of patient test results. The Office online tools also permit
healthcare professionals to establish direct communications with
patients through their doctors' state-of-the-art customized Web
sites;
-- Supplies: WebMD makes available competitively-priced supplies
through its relationship with PSS.
-- Virtual Practice Manager: WebMD provides user-selectable tools to
cut time and cost from doctors' clinical practices and business
office management;
-- Library: WebMD delivers real-time medical news, online journals
and reference databases for easy medical research use;
-- Classroom: WebMD offers hundreds of Continuing Medical Education
courses, as well as convenient indices for professional national
and International healthcare conferences;
-- "Lounge": WebMD provides personalized news, stocks, travel,
sports, shopping, search engines and a financial center.
To provide products and services in the above categories, WebMD has partnered with world class companies including:
-- HBO & Company (NASDAQ: HBOC) for patient test results and health
information library services;
-- ENVOY Corporation (NASDAQ: ENVY) for integrated electronic data
interchange and transaction processing services;
-- Premiere Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: PTEK) for unified messaging
- a physicians' universal inbox for voice, fax and email;
-- iXL for the development of personal Web site services and a
web-enabled virtual University for physicians;
-- certifiedemail.com for secure electronic communication of test
results to patients;
-- The Thomson Healthcare Information Group for physicians'
reference and online publications;
-- A.D.A.M. Software, Inc. [NASDAQ: ADAM] for anatomical and
physiological software; and
-- The National Jewish Medical and Research Center for the latest
advances in respiratory and immunological diseases.
Additionally, WebMD's consumer-oriented "Health and Wellness Center" will provide millions of consumer Internet users with the same up-to-date, in-depth and reliable sources of information used by their doctors. WebMD also offers consumers such easy-to-use content and applications as online communications with their own doctors and convenient referrals to local physicians and hospitals.
The mission of WebMD, based in Atlanta, is to become the leading Internet-based healthcare network, offering products and services that bridge the continuum of care, meeting the needs of doctors and hospitals as well as consumers. WebMD physician subscriptions are available by accessing the Web site at www.webmd.com. Consumers can also access the information and services they need to take control of their health and lifestyles through a separate Web site at the same address.
CONTACT:
Robinson Lerer & Montgomery, New York
Lisa Wolford
212/484-7058
Jeanine Smartt
212/484-6713
KEYWORD: GEORGIA
BW1102 NOV 04,1998
5:45 PACIFIC
08:45 EASTERN
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