Bio-PRN Web-Based Offering Empowers Physicians to Diagnose Outbreaks of Bioterrorism Quickly.

Health & Medical Writers

IRVING, Texas & DENVER & WELLESLEY HILLS, Mass.--(BW HealthWire)-- June 24, 2002

AdvancePCS, Medical Group Management Association and

Medical Learning Co. Sponsor Free Educational Program

In response to the increasing need for physicians and health care administrators to have quick, easy access to bioterrorism resources and diagnostic tools, AdvancePCS (Nasdaq:ADVP), the Medical Group Management Association and the Medical Learning Co. have developed a Web-based solution -- the Bioterrorism Practical Readiness Network.

The network, Bio-PRN, is a free educational and informational program that serves as a quick reference and intervention guide for physicians and health care administrators in studying, recognizing and treating diseases associated with bioterrorism.

"Physicians and administrators are being called to a new role in preparing the nation for bioterrorism attacks," said Andrew Garling, M.D., senior vice president and chief medical officer of AdvancePCS, the nation's leading health improvement company.

"They need tools to aid them in this new role. Bio-PRN will help physicians quickly diagnose a bioterrorism outbreak and determine the immediate steps needed to care for patients and contain the occurrence."

Physicians and health care administrators can reach Bio-PRN through each of the partners' Web sites: www.AdvancePCSMDnet.com/phys_bioterror.html; www.mgma.com/bioprn.cfm, or www.familypractice.com.

They can interact with:

-- Virtual patients, allowing physicians to examine hypothetical "victims"
exposed to agents used in bioterrorism;

-- Comprehensive references on biological agents;

-- Disease management flash cards with information on history, signs, symptoms,
diagnosis, testing, treatment and prevention; and

-- Continuing medical education available at no charge.

"The most exciting feature of Bio-PRN is technology that provides interactive, true-to-life, simulated patients, who are suspected of -- or are actually suffering from -- exposure to biological agents used in bioterrorism," said Edward Draper, M.D., MGMA member and chairman/president of Idaho Emergency Physicians in Boise.

"This enables a clinician who has never examined a patient exposed to a bioterrorism agent with the equivalent experience of treating multiple patients, ranging from the worried well to the seriously sick."

A physician using Bio-PRN who wants to examine a virtual patient first will be presented with a history of the individual's illness. The physician will be able to ask the virtual patient about his or her symptoms, examine the patient, listen to lung and heart sounds and examine chest X-rays and skin photos.

The physician can then request an assessment of the patient and Bio-PRN will provide diagnostic and therapeutic information.

"It is one thing for a physician to parse through all the available paperwork on this subject matter, but it is more efficient and ultimately more effective in terms of treatment for a physician to use the Internet and interact with virtual patients to diagnose outbreaks," said Paul Young, M.D., chairman of MLC.

Bio-PRN will launch with diagnostic tools for anthrax, and will add infectious diseases included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categories A and B, such as botulism, plague, small pox, tularemia, glanders and brucellosis, as well as enhanced information specifically designed for the health care administrator.

About MGMA

The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), founded in 1926, is the nation's principal voice for medical group practice. MGMA's 19,000 members manage and lead more than 10,200 organizations in which more than 200,000 physicians practice.

MGMA serves the spectrum of physician practices from small to large, plus other health care delivery systems such as management service organizations, integrated delivery systems, academic medical centers and ambulatory surgery centers. MGMA leads the profession and assists members through information, education, networking and advocacy.

Its core purpose is to improve the effectiveness of medical group practices and the knowledge and skills of the individuals who manage and lead them.

About the Medical Learning Co.

The mission of the Medical Learning Co. is to merge its proprietary technologies with medical knowledge and education resources to provide clinicians and patients with advanced, easy-to-use tools to help facilitate the highest quality of medical care.

The Medical Learning Co. was originally founded as a joint venture between the American Board of Family Practice (ABFP) and Kurzweil Technologies Inc. (KTI). The ABFP is the second largest medical specialty board in the United States, and serves as the certifying agency for the family practice specialty.

KTI is a leading global developer of advanced software technologies and was founded by Ray Kurzweil, recognized throughout the world for many technological firsts.

These include the leading speech recognition system for creating medical reports, the first omni-font Optical Character Recognition (OCR), the first print-to-speech reading machine for the blind, the first computer music synthesizer that could realistically recreate the sounds of acoustic instruments, and the first commercially marketed large vocabulary speech recognition software.

Kurzweil is a winner of the National Medal of Technology, the nation's highest honor in technology, as well as the Lemelson-MIT $500,000 prize -- the world's largest single award for invention and innovation.

About AdvancePCS

AdvancePCS (www.advancepcs.com) is the nation's largest independent provider of health improvement services, touching the lives of more than 75 million health plan members and managing approximately $28 billion in annual prescription drug spending.

AdvancePCS offers health plans a wide range of health improvement products and services designed to improve the quality of care delivered to health plan members and manage costs.

The company's capabilities include integrated mail service and retail pharmacy networks, innovative clinical services, customized disease management programs, specialty pharmacy, clinical trials and outcomes research, information management, prescription drug services for the uninsured, and online health information for consumers.

AdvancePCS clients include Blue Cross and Blue Shield organizations, insurance companies and HMOs, Fortune 500 employers, Taft-Hartley groups, state and local governments, and other health plan sponsors.

AdvancePCS is ranked by Fortune magazine as one of America's 100 fastest-growing public companies and is included on the Forbes Platinum 400 list of best big companies. AdvancePCS earned the No. 2 spot on the Barron's 500 list of best performing companies.

Forward-Looking Statements

Any statements included in this press release that are not historical facts and that concern predictions of economic performance and management's plans and objectives constitute forward-looking statements under the safe harbor provision of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

These statements involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from the forward-looking statements. We do not undertake any obligation to provide updates to such forward-looking statements.

Factors that would cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, changes in the health care industry or the economy in general, competition, acquisitions, changes in the legislative or regulatory environment, and other factors detailed in AdvancePCS' Securities and Exchange Commission filings.