1StopMD-TM Launched to Provide Single-Source Purchasing Capability to Medical Practice Offices; Company is Dedicated to ``Maximizing Physican Purchasing PowerO''.

Business Editors and Health/Medical Writers

MONROVIA, Calif.--(BW HealthWire)--March 29, 2000

1StopMD(TM) (www.1stopmd.com) officially launched its website today, providing out-of-hospital physicians and physician practices with the convenience of online buying and purchasing power comparable to that of large managed care organizations.

Venkat Yepuri, 1StopMD co-founder and CEO, said that in its pilot phase, the company signed up several physician groups across multiple specialties in 47 locations across the United States. Each physician group is a pilot customer. Furthermore, working relationships are also in place with major distributors of both medical and office supplies. He noted that the supply chain that currently serves more than 400,000 office-based physicians in the U.S. medical office market is fragmented and inefficient. Additionally, large distributors in the supply chain today view the private medical office market as diffused and characterized by low volumes. Yepuri said that physicians and their staffs are extremely busy, and they do not have time to deal with multiple suppliers and handle multiple invoices, adding that quite often physicians end up paying significantly more than what hospitals pay for supplies.

"1StopMD serves both the customer and the supplier in this large market by facilitating efficient purchasing and delivery of goods at significantly lower costs, coupled with the ease and convenience of Internet-based desktop ordering by the physician or the practice manager," Yepuri added. "1StopMD leverages technologies such as the Internet and EDI/XML to provide a single point of order entry to maximize physician purchasing power." 1StopMD has created a proprietary, scalable electronic commerce platform. Business processes that sit atop the platform were shaped by knowledge that most purchases are catalog-based and those physician practices are late adopters of technology. Because of these two factors, personalization and customization features like "My Catalog" and "Purchasing Lists" were created. In addition to applying the latest technologies, 1StopMD also streamlines the procurement process by presenting customers with one invoice for all their purchases, while allowing the distributor/supplier to issue one invoice for multiple customers. This reduces transaction costs on both sides, and allows 1StopMD to pass along the savings to the customer and the supplier. Studies by the National Association of Purchasing Management and Aberdeen Group indicate an electronic commerce transaction significantly reduces practice cost to $25-30 compared with $150 for traditional purchasing.

Yepuri added that 1StopMD provides more than access to a large number of storage keeping units (SKUs) that are ordered every day, such as gloves, syringes and other devices to support patient care delivery. 1StopMD also offers medical practitioners equally convenient one-source shopping for office supplies and other capabilities often requested by constantly busy physicians in private practice. Specialists in early-stage companies and several individual investors provided initial funding. 1StopMD received seed financing from Network Angel Capital, a San Francisco Bay Area group dedicated to finding and bringing to market well-conceived start-ups with a solid business plan.

Privately held 1StopMD, Inc. is the largest, solely Internet-based aggregator of medical and business supplies for the out-of-hospital physician practice. Operating as a medical and office supplies exchange, the company maximizes physician purchasing power and streamlines the flow of goods between manufacturers, distributors and out-of-hospital practices. Founded in 1999, the company is staffed and supported by a management team and advisory board with more than 100 years of medical practice and business experience. The company is located at 602 E. Huntington Dr., Suite G, Monrovia, Calif. 91016. Telephone: [phone] or via email at [e-mail].

1StopMD and Maximizing Physician Purchasing Power are trademarks of 1StopMD, Inc.