What's in a Name? For Catalyst Health Solutions, It's Clarity
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After more than a decade in business, HealthExtras decided that it was time to change its name.
No, there wasn't a merger. There was no scandal to cover up. And the Rockville firm certainly isn't departing from its core business of managing pharmacy benefits.
It's just that the company has outgrown its original brand.
This week HealthExtras became Catalyst Health Solutions, and its ticker symbol changed from HLEX to CHSI.
"It was no easy feat," said Joanna Ficklin, Catalyst's vice president of sales administration and marketing.
Founded in 1997, HealthExtras started as a small office in Rockville with a handful of employees. In those days, it was known for selling supplemental insurance, mainly health and disability benefits, on the Internet.
But in 2001, that business model began to change. HealthExtras made a strategic investment to acquire an 80 percent interest in CatalystRx, a Las Vegas firm that managed pharmacy benefits for large employee groups, managed-care organizations and third-party administrators. HealthExtras paid CatalystRx $11 million in cash and thousands of shares of newly issued HealthExtras stock, then valued at $2.3 million.
The following year, HealthExtras purchased the outstanding 20 percent for thousands more shares of HealthExtras stock, then valued at $1.1 million, and notes payable of $4.2 million.
The acquisition soon overshadowed the company's other subsidiaries, including HospiScript Services, which provides pharmacy benefit management services to the hospice industry, and Immediate Pharmaceutical Services, a prescription mail service facility based in Avon Lake, Ohio.
Today, CatalystRx accounts for nearly all of HealthExtras's revenue. What started as a small slice of HealthExtras's overall business has propelled the company's services nationally and grown its workforce to more than 800 employees.
HealthExtras signed Iowa-based Wellmark, its first Blue Cross/Blue Shield client, in 2006. The contract was the company's largest and the first to total more than 1 million members.
Last year, HealthExtras became the country's fourth-largest publicly traded pharmacy benefit manager through its acquisitions and new clients, which included Maryland state employees and Medical Card Systems, a major managed-care company in Puerto Rico.
