Toronto Stock Exchange Symbol: SXC

SYSTEMS XCELLENCE ANNOUNCES THE APPROVAL OF SXC HEALTH SOLUTIONS, INC. AS AN ENDORSED MEDICARE-APPROVED DRUG DISCOUNT CARD SPONSOR
 

MILTON, Ontario, March 26, 2004, Systems Xcellence Inc., ("SXC") (TSX: SXC) a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions throughout the pharmaceutical supply chain, announced today that their U.S. subsidiary, SXC Health Solutions, Inc., has been approved by the U.S. government Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ("CMS") for providing a drug discount card for Medicare beneficiaries. The approval of SXC, and 27 other General Medicare-card sponsors, was announced yesterday by Tommy Thompson, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

SXC's Medicare-approved Discount Drug Card will be available to all Medicare beneficiaries and will provide competitive discounts on brand name and generic prescription drugs through SXC's national retail pharmacy network. It is designed to save Medicare beneficiaries money and provide them access to the pharmaceutical drugs they need. These beneficiaries will be entitled to the lower of SXC's negotiated discount rate or the pharmacies usual and customary price. In addition, SXC's offering is an open formulary, which means that Medicare beneficiaries won't have to worry about switching medications in order to participate. SXC is also partnering with several of their current customers to provide the processing of their approved discount cards.

"These cards are scheduled to become effective for all eligible Medicare beneficiaries on June 1, 2004," said Gordon S. Glenn, President & CEO of SXC. "While it is difficult to predict what the near-term utilization of these cards will be, we believe that an increasing amount of Medicare pharmacy claims will be processed by our ASP center over the next several years. In addition, CMS has announced a plan to implement a funded pharmacy benefit in 2006 for Medicare-eligible beneficiaries which has the potential to add up to 20,000,000 new lives into the U.S. pharmacy benefits market."

About Systems Xcellence Inc

Systems Xcellence (SXC) is headquartered in Milton, Ontario with offices and processing centers in Lombard, Illinois, Scottsdale, Arizona and Victoria, British Columbia. SXC is a leading provider of healthcare information technology solutions and services to the healthcare benefits management industry. The company's product offerings and solutions combine a wide range of software applications, application service provider (ASP) processing services and professional services, designed for many of the largest organizations in the pharmaceutical supply chain, such as pharmacy benefit managers, managed care organizations, retail pharmacy chains and other healthcare intermediaries. SXC can be found on the Internet at www.sxc.com.

This press release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations. These forward-looking statements entail various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in these forward-looking statements. Risks and uncertainties about the Company's business are more fully discussed in the Management Discussion and Analysis published in the Company's annual report.

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