BMW opens pharmacy at South Carolina plant; Automaker says it hopes to reduce expenses, maintain benefits.(News)

Business Insurance, July, 2005

Byline: MARA LAZDINS SPARTANBURG, S.C.-In an effort to help control its growing prescription drug benefit costs and to make filling prescriptions easier for employees, BMW Manufacturing Co. last week became the latest large employer to set up an onsite pharmacy for workers. The pharmacy, which opened for business July 6, will serve the 4,600 BMW workers-and their dependents-at the automaker's Spartanburg, S.C., plant.

By purchasing prescription drugs directly for the pharmacy, the company hopes to reduce its expenses-and to maintain benefit levels without increasing costs for its employees, explained a spokeswoman for BMW Manufacturing, which is a unit of Germany's BMW A.G. "Having the onsite pharmacy will help for the future by saving money and will...