Since January 2003, the manufacturer’s rebate introduced by the German Drug Supply Economy Act (Arzneimittelversorgungs-Wirtschaftlichkeitsgesetz) has placed new demands on the sales and IT departments of pharmaceutical companies. We, as the company d3.net, were the first provider of a corresponding testing software on the market. Since then, the product AVWG has been extended several times and has found its way into many companies in the pharmaceutical industry. A customer survey conducted by d3.net revealed that some manufacturers subject to rebates underestimate the potential of accurate auditing and control of statements and either do not audit them at all or perform the audit with inadequate tools such as spreadsheets or simple database programs. In addition to being time consuming and error prone, some queries or even histories are simply impossible.

The GMG exacerbates the problem of billing for pharmaceutical companies. And changes by the legislator or data suppliers do not make the handling easier: what was programmed today by your EDP specialists may be old news tomorrow.

After reading in the accounting data and its encrypted transmission to Bremen, the check is fully automated. A total of 8 criteria are checked and a status report is generated. The special feature of the software lies in its technological basis: the user interface is displayed by a web browser such as Internet Explorer™, while the program itself operates remotely on a secure server in the Bremen Technology Park. It does not matter which operating system is installed on the user’s computer – MacOS™, Acorn or any Unix system are also suitable. The only requirement is a connection to the World Wide Web. Furthermore, there are hardly any hardware requirements for the user – the necessary computing power is provided by d3.net.

Each company has its own virtual server with its own Internet address. Access is secured via user name and cryptic password. The connection between user and server is of course encrypted and thus offers effective protection against possible hackers. If desired, additional security measures can be built in – thus the data security is significantly greater than is usual in many places. Data protection is a top priority in the air-conditioned data center in Bremen.

If errors have occurred, corresponding comments are shown in the status report. The comments are linked to the incorrect data records. With just a few clicks, the user can quickly find out the cause of the error.

The user interface was designed to be simple, clear and self-explanatory. This makes it easy for even inexperienced users to quickly find their way around.

The checks and reports can be created for any period of time. Thus, evaluations can also be made on a quarterly basis or even for a whole year. The following reports are available:

Totals per ARZ
PZN overview
Area analysis according to 1860 segmentation
Pharmacy analysis
Segment analysis

A filter for individually created product groups completes all evaluations and reports to high informative value. The PZN invoices as well as all pharmacy addresses can be exported, so that integration into existing IT landscapes is no problem.