Vermont's first mail order pharmacy

Vermont Business Magazine, Mar 01, 2005 by Hallman, Ron

Gaining access to more affordable prescription medication has become major economic and political issue at both the national and state level, and has inspired many individuals and businesses to seek nontraditional plans or opportunities to obtain pharmaceuticals for themselves, or to introduce a "drug benefit" as part of an employer-sponsored health insurance plan.

In Vermont, both large and small companies have begun turning to mail order pharmacy services as a more convenient and affordable alternative to traditional drug benefit plans.

Among these service providers is Vermont's first mail order pharmacy company, "Vermont Mail Order Pharmacy" (VMOP) which has gone from a concept in 1995, to a multi-million dollar company in 2005, with more than 100 clients in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

This year, VMOP will gross more than $6 minion in sales, and this growth trend is expected to not only continue, but accelerate. During this period of growth, VMOP has carved a niche for itself by offering companies the opportunity to either add, or augment an existing prescription drug benefit plan for employees, at no cost to the company and at a high level of service and convenience for the employees. VMOP operates seven days a week, and offers online prescription ordering and refill services, as well as an aggressive pricing formula and incentive programs offering name brand discount rates.

"It's a classic win-win situation for the benefits manager of a large company or the owner of a small company who would like to add a new benefit, but who cannot add any more benefit expense", said VMOP founder Frank Buonincontro, who continues to travel continuously to introduce the services of VMOP to companies throughout New England. The success of VMOP has attracted the attention of larger benefit consultants, which now include VMOP among the programs offered to their business clients.

"We have been successful because it is a simple concept for employees and an attractive benefit and cost-effective new benefit for employers", Buonincontro added.

Although VMOP remains Vermont's only mail order pharmacy company based in Vermont, more than 60% of the company's sales now come from other states, inspiring the company to establish a new division, "New England Mail Order Pharmacy" (NEMOP) as of the first of July.

VMOP and NEMOP are divisions of Porter Health Systems which, in turn, is part of Porter Medical Center in Middlebury.