IPS Appoints Dr. Avrom Gart, M.D. as Medical Director

COSTA MESA, Calif., Aug. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrated Prescription Solutions (IPS), one of the country's fastest growing Prescription Benefit Management providers, announced the appointment of Dr. Avrom Gart, M.D. as Medical Director and head of its Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee.

Dr. Gart oversees Physicians and Surgeons Network, a URAC accredited Physician Review Organization (PRO) consisting of more than 100 physician reviewers and the IPS P&T Committee. He is board certified in Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Electro-diagnostic Medicine, and Pain Management. In addition to working with IPS, Dr. Gart serves as Medical Director for several prominent health care organizations, including the Cedars Sinai Medical Spine Center. He has also been recognized by California's Workers' Compensation Board as an Agreed Medical Examiner (AME).

Greg Todd, IPS's CEO, introduced Dr. Gart as "one of the crucial members of our team to ensure that IPS is delivering the optimum clinical and pharmaceutical expertise vital to making critical medical decisions." In addition Todd added that, "Dr. Gart's role will ensure their clients and injured workers clinical needs are met while achieving the cost containment objectives of the client."

The IPS P&T Committee, which Dr. Gart oversees, is an important component of the IPS product offering and consists of physicians, pharmacists, and PharmD providers (each holding a professional license in good standing) who act in an advisory capacity to our Medical Director and administration regarding issues involving medication therapy for injured workers.  The committee is a critical component in the development and approval of client- specific work comp formularies that will provide medically appropriate and cost-effective medications for injured workers aimed at maximizing a claimant's ability to return to work.

Dr. Gart has been a specialist in Workers' Compensation matters since 2003. His URAC certified physicians are experts in pain management and physician pharmacy review. "If we are to keep healthcare costs under control, more attention has to be paid to the use of proper medicines including Opioids, including OxyContin, Percocet, Oxycodone, Fentanyl and Actiq, are the most frequently prescribed chronic pain medications for injured workers. Abuse of these drugs has dramatic effects on payors. Narcotics account for nearly 40% of workers compensation costs." IPS just released a new positioning paper on Opioid Abuse called "Do the Math to Achieve Real Workers' Compensation PBM Savings – A look at the opioid abuse endemic." A full copy of it can be found on their website at www.integratedprescriptionsolutions.com. This 12-page insight on controlling costs was issued just in time for the upcoming The 67th Annual Workers' Compensation Educational Conference. Aug 19 - 23, 2012, in Orlando, FL.

Background

Integrated Prescription Solutions (IPS) was in 2003,  organically positioning itself as an innovative industry leader.  IPS is a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) and ancillary products and services provider for the workers' compensation insurance (W/C) and automobile personal injury prevention (PIP) markets with more than 75 years of workers' compensation experience among their leadership team. The cornerstone of their success is the fact that managing workers' compensation claims is all that they do.

SOURCE Integrated Prescription Solutions